Cuban Protestant pastor Lorenzo Rosales Fajardo was released from Mar Verde prison on 17 January as part of a mass amnesty following the US announcement that it would remove Cuba from its list of state sponsors of terrorism, reports the religious freedom advocacy group CSW in a statement.

The information has also been confirmed by Diario de Cuba, which includes the pastor's name on the list of the first people released by the Cuban regime.

Pastor Rosales Fajardo was violently arrested along with hundreds of others after participating in peaceful protests that took place across Cuba on 11 July 2021.

He was eventually tried and convicted on trumped-up charges of ‘disrespect’, ‘aggression’, ‘criminal incitement’ and ‘public disorder’ in December 2021.

In May 2022, he and his family were informed that he had been sentenced to seven years' imprisonment, which was one year less than the eight-year sentence initially communicated in a document sent from the Permanent Mission of Cuba in Geneva to the United Nations. He was initially held in the Boniato maximum security prison, but in early 2023 his family reported that he was transferred to a minimum security prison closer to his home.

The Cuban administration made multiple false accusations about the reasons for the pastor's detention. Live footage and photos showed armed police and members of the paramilitary force attacking peaceful, unarmed protesters in the middle of the street, and Rosales Fajardo is seen being strangled. The government denies accusations of violence against the pastor, including a beating that left him unconscious.

Despite demonstrations and explicit letters calling for the pastor's release, some from US congressmen or the European Parliament, the Cuban government turned a deaf ear. In the following years, various international bodies expressed their concern about the growing repression in Cuba. The country was even included in the annual Open Doors World List of Persecution of Christians.

More than 500 freed

The release of Rosales follows the Cuban government's decision to free 553 prisoners, a decision that came after US President Joe Biden's decision to remove Cuba as one of the countries sponsoring terrorism and with an important mediation role of the Vatican. It also came just days before Donald Trump took office as president of the United States.

Havana pointed out that in early January, President Miguel Díaz-Canel addressed a letter to Pope Francis, informing him of the decision to grant freedom to 553 people punished for various crimes.