The announcement the Castro dictatorship was going to pardon 3,522 prison inmates in advance of Pope Francis' visit to Cuba is undoubtedly good news for the prisoners and their families. The pope and others always looking for something good in the dictatorship will be pleased.
But it would be folly to consider the mass pardon a sign of a fundamental shift in the nature of the Castro regime, that it somehow has decided to quit imprisoning its political opponents simply because they are political opponents.
Just consider this: None of the political prisoners whose names were on a list released in June by the unofficial Cuban Commission on Human Rights were on the list of soon-to-be-parolees released by the dictatorship on Friday.
Also, there was no word if the dictatorship and secret police also planned to halt or suspend its increasingly pervasive repression of the Cuban people -- especially those Ladies In White and other activists who dare challenge the regime by trying to walk to Sunday Mass, and instead end up beaten and/or jailed.
Stopping that would please Pope Francis, too, right?
The list of political prisoners is here.
The list of new parolees is here.
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