The crackdown that ended the Cuban spring began 22 years ago today, the massive roundup of dissidents by the Cuban dictatorship’s secret police. The Center hosted an online conversation with three former prisoners of conscience arrested and sentenced to long prison terms in 2003.
Antonio Diaz Sanchez, José Miguel Martínez Hernández and Regis Iglesias Ramírez of the Christian Liberation Movement provided their analysis in 2023 (in Spanish), and the video is available on-line.
Their so called “crimes”?
The three had helped to organize a petition drive, legally recognized within the existing constitution, called the Varela Project. Others among the 75 were independent journalists or human rights defenders.
Over a 100 were rounded up, but 75 would be subjected to political show trials and sentenced to long prison terms ranging up to 28 years in prison. Luis Enrique Ferrer García was handed down the longest sentence because during his trial he invited the judge to sign the Varela Project.
Amnesty International recognized them all as prisoners of conscience.
Havana thought it had crushed the Cuban democratic opposition, but they were wrong.
In the midst of the crackdown emerged a new and formidable force: The Ladies in White. The mothers, wives, sisters, and daughters of the 75 Cubans imprisoned, organized into this new movement that began to march through the streets of Cuba following mass on Sundays, organizing literary teas, and strategizing how to nonviolently free their loved ones.
Despite the slanders, death threats, beatings, and broken bones, by 2011 all of the 75 political prisoners, who became known as the “group of the 75” were out of prison. Most were sent into exile, including Luis Enrique, but 12 who held out to the end remain in the island and today, continue the struggle, and the others now outside press on for a democratic transition in Cuba.
This is a nonviolent movement.
On October 2, 2024 the Center for a Free Cuba hosted a panel discussion with several generations of activists: Sebastian Arcos, Cuban Committee for Human Rights; Antonio Ramon Diaz Sanchez, Christian Liberation Movement; and Magaly Broche de la Cruz, Ladies in White. It was in Spanish and titled, “Reflection on the nonviolent resistance of Cubans against the Castro dictatorship.” It is available online.
It was more than 75
Other dissidents were arrested during or around the time of the crackdown, but were not included in the “group of the 75.”
Amnesty International gathered information on their activities, the circumstances of their arrest and their then current legal status, determining they too were prisoners of conscience. They included: Rafael Ernesto Avila Pérez, Javier García Pérez, Félix Jaime González Martínez, Rolando Jimenes Posada, Rafael Millet Leyva, Miguel Sigler Amaya, Pablo Solis Cubilla and Orlando Zapata Tamayo.
Looking back twenty two years, there is a documentary that stands out from that period The Spring of Cuba La Primavera de Cuba filmed on the island before and after the crackdown that captures that moment in time filmed by Czech – Chilean journalist Carlos Gonzalez. The names of the prisoner of conscience, their age at the time of arrest, and prison sentences are available online. (Source: Amnesty, 2003).
José Daniel Ferrer García and Félix Navarro Rodríguez, two members of the “group of the 75,” were released in January of 2025 in a deal brokered by the Vatican with the Cuban government..
Prisoner of conscience José Daniel Ferrer García’s house arrest order was revoked, and was sent back to jail in August 2021 to complete an unjust four-year term.
Sayli Navarro and Felix Navarro: Daughter and father jailed for their defense of human rights.
On March 2, 2022 the Cuban dictatorship confirmed the prison sentences against two Cuban human rights defenders. Félix Navarro Rodríguez, ( then age 68 ), condemned to 9 years in prison. His daughter, Sayli Navarro (then age 35), was condemned to eight years in prison. Both are long time human rights defenders who have reported on systematic human rights violations in Cuba. They were detained after visiting a police station to learn more about the situation of the nonviolent demonstrators who had been imprisoned during the July 11, 2021 protests in Cuba.
Felix Navarro is a member of the International Society for Human Rights (ISHR) board of directors. He has been arbitrarily jailed since July 12, 2021. Sayli Navarro became a Lady in White, together with her mom. campaigning for her dad’s release following his arrest in 2003.
Sayli was also detained on July 12th, but was released hours later, and had been staying with her mother, who is in poor health. She has also spoken out against her father’s arbitrary imprisonment. Sayli was taken, with her hands and feet chained, to prison on April 18, 2022. Two years ago today, a recording was released of her stating that state security is pressuring her to go into exile in order to get out of prison, and that she rejected their offer.
Her father, Felix, was released on January 18, 2025, but Sayli remains in a Cuban prison, despite being recognized by Amnesty International as a prisoner of conscience.
Notes from the Cuban Exile Quarter, March 18, 2025
Remembering two Cuban Springs over ten years apart and the crackdowns that followed
Two Cuban springs ended in crackdowns, but the democracy movement knows it will return.
Jose Cipriano Rodriguez, corporal in Batista’s regime, prepared for firing squad (1959).
Winter arrives
Winter arrived in Cuba in 1959, and its darkest nights continued into 1969 when the Castro regime ended Christmas under the pretext of conducting the 10 million ton sugar harvest. It was supposed to be a temporary measure, but Christmas did not return until 1997.
The Castro dictatorship replaced the family as the primary unit of social organization in Cuba during this darkest of winters. By doing so, it displaced the family and encouraged family members to spy on one another, creating widespread mistrust that persists today.
During this time, the Castro dictatorship’s prison inmates were the keepers of Cuba’s human rights and democratic legacy, which later emerged in 1976 when the Cuban Committee for Human Rights was founded.
First thaw
Ricardo Bofill, Cuban Committee for Human Rights, Havana 1987
The international community first learned about their human rights reports through paper scraps they smuggled out of these prisons. The scandal that followed forced the Castro dictatorship 12 years later to allow visits from the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, the International Committee of the Red Cross, Amnesty International, and Human Rights Watch to Cuba and the prisons throughout the island. This thaw lasted between 1988 and 1989.
Many resistance organizations were formed during this time and in the years that followed. One of these organizations was the Christian Liberation Movement, which was founded in 1988.
Over the course of 10 years, this movement discovered ways to mobilize the Cuban people and demand that the communist government uphold its own laws and regulations, which on paper purported to include democratic components but were not observed in fact.
The Brothers to the Rescue shootdown on February 24, 1996, which resulted in the deaths of four human rights advocates, prompted the adoption of the Cuban Democracy and Solidarity Act on March 12, 1996, which tightened sanctions on Havana.
Castro decided that the Pope visiting Cuba would be a good way to obtain favorable coverage for the regime in its efforts to relax or lift sanctions.
https://cubanexilequarter.blogspot.com/2025/03/remembering-two-cuban-springs-over-ten.html