Havana, Jan 8 (IANS/EFE) Cuban authorities have freed twin brothers Diango and Bianco Vargas Martin, both considered political prisoners by Amnesty International and the Cuban Commission for Human Rights and National Reconciliation, Commission chief Elizardo Sanchez has said.
Speaking to Spanish news agency Efe, Sanchez could not confirm if the releases Wednesday were included in the group of 53 political prisoners that Cuba promised in December to free under its agreement to normalise relations with the US as no details have been made public.
The Vargas Martin twins were imprisoned in December 2013, at the age of 16, and sentenced to two-and-a-half years in prison for contempt, resistance, causing public disorder and issuing threats.
The brothers, both members of the Patriotic Union of Cuba (UNPACU) had already completed 25 months of their sentence and only four more months remained, UNPACU leader Jose Daniel Ferrer told Efe.
Ferrer said the two brothers should have completed their jail term at a correctional home for minors as they were under-age at that time, which reflects the Cuban authorities' lack of will to grant fundamental rights.
He explained that the twins were imprisoned when they went to a police station in Santiago de Cuba to seek the immediate release of six of their companions, also from UNPACU, who had been detained a few days earlier while celebrating a birthday.
Among those detained were their elder brother Alexei who is still in prison.
One of the twins, Bianco, told Efe over telephone after their release that neither of them expected to be set free.
"It was a surprise. We didn't know anything. At three in the afternoon, they told us that we would be transferred from the prison and set free," he said.
He added that both of them had been granted a conditional release and that they would have to report to the provincial court every month until May, the month their sentence was to be completed.
Bianco said that his main objective now would be to fight for the release of his brother Alexei who is serving a five-year sentence.
--IANS/EFE
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