ABSTRACT
In the spring and summer of 2010, the Cuban government seemed poised to reinstitute a series of repressive crackdowns on dissident activists (most conspicuously targeting and arresting some participants in the peaceful protest marches of the Damas de Blanco [Ladies in White]). During this period the Cuban Catholic Church emerged as the one independent, mediating institution that was able to negotiate with key figures in the revolutionary government, including President Raúl Castro, for the movement of many political prisoners to locations closer to their families and, in some cases, to secure the outright release of sick or elderly prisoners. These efforts culminated in mid-July 2010, when the Cuban government announced that the final fifty-two (out of seventy-five) dissidents still imprisoned from the March 2003 crackdown on dissidence would be released, an action that prompted Cuban dissident Guillermo Fariñas to end his well-publicized 134-day hunger strike.
