“It [the prisoner list] has been delivered to the Hill to a number of folks on both the Senate and the House side, both Democrat and Republican leadership,” Harf said. “We fully expect it will be in the public domain…I am sure Congress will provide it.”
Last Friday the House of Representatives Foreign Affairs Committee chairman Ed Royce and a ranking member Eliot Engel sent a joint letter to US Secretary of State John Kerry, requesting public release of the names and current status of 53 Cuban political prisoners.
A small number of the prisoners on the list was released during the summer and the fall of 2014, a few additional prisoners were released before December 17, since then all 53 prisoners have been released, Harf specified.
Harf stressed that the Cuban prisoners release is not the only measure by which the United States judges Cuba’s human rights situation.
US Congresswoman Ros-Lehtinen on Monday also said in a statement that “while it is welcome news that some political prisoners have been freed in Cuba, we cannot be fooled by this smoke and mirror attempt to disregard those individuals who still languish in Castro gulags.”
In December 2014 US President Barack Obama announced the decision to restore diplomatic relations with Cuba. The process began with relaxing trade and travel restrictions and reopening a US embassy in Havana.
US Assistant Secretary of State for the Western Hemisphere Roberta Jacobson is expected to visit Havana on January 21-22 to hold talks on migration issues and the improvement of relations between the United States and Cuba.
