Cuban political prisoner María de los Ángeles Borrego Mir, perhaps the best known female political prisoner in Cuba, was released from prison April 21, eight months shy of completing a 4-year sentence handed down in December 2005 after she was convicted of being a "pre-criminal social danger," according to a report from independent journalist Belinda Salas Tapanes.
Cuban law generally allows for parole in certain cases, but Borrego, who has suffered a variety of health problems while in jail, said prison officials did not give her a reason for her early release. There are reports that Borrego was regularly beaten while an inmate at the "Manto Negro" prison in Havana.
"I never expected kindness from them, and I do not know what lies behind it," said Borrego, a member of the Rural Federation of Latin American Women (FLAMUR), one of the more active opposition groups in Cuba, especially on economic issues.
Nothing probably lies behind it, other than the fact that Borrego was nearing the end of her sentence. Her release is welcomed, but it would be a mistake to interpret the dictatorship's action in her case as anything more.
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