The latest numbers compiled by two Cuba-based human rights groups reveal a noticeable drop in political arrests on the island in June.
The Hablemos Press news agency (CIHPRESS) reported 175 arrests, the first time this year the monthly census has dropped below 302 recorded in January.
And the Cuban Commission on Human Rights and National Reconciliation reported 180 arrests, the lowest monthly total since September 2010 when there were 90 detentions.
What do the drops mean?
Maybe it's because many dissidents are traveling overseas, and the dictatorship doesn't want to give them any more credence by maintaining or worsening prior levels of repression.
Maybe anti-communist activists are being more circumspect with their activism and drawing less attention from the secret police.
Maybe the Castros' thugs are taking the summer off.
Maybe -- and I suspect this is the answer -- it doesn't mean a thing.
Because despite the numbers, the Castro dictatorship is as vile and repressive as it has ever been in its more than 54 years, systematically targeting its most courageous opponents. For example, CIHPRESS reported that in June four dissidents were attacked by machete-wielding butchers doing the bidding of their Castroite masters.
Maybe the drops would be significant if they were accompanied by a move by the Castro regime to enter into a good-faith dialogue with the Cuban people to shape the nation's future. Of course, the regime has never shown an inclination to do anything that might threaten its grip on absolute political power on the island, so it's probably premature to attach too large a meaning to the latest statistics.
In the end, the most reliable assessment is to conclude numbers don't matter -- whether they may be 175 or 180 or 302 or whatever. The dictatorship has never held itself accountable in that manner.
And more importantly, when there is even one politically motivated arrest, freedom is in peril.
One machete attack, one act of repudiation, one political arrest is one too many.
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