Diaz-Balart Condemns Arrests of Cuban Activists, Including Two on the President’s “List of 53”

WASHINGTON D.C. – Congressman Mario Diaz-Balart (R-FL) released the following statement after Rolando Reyes Rabanal and Luis Enrique Labrador were re-arrested. The two men were on President Obama's list of 53 political prisoners who were released. They were arrested alongside another activist, Miguel Daniel Borroto Vazquez.

"According to reports, Cuban activists Rolando Reyes Rabanal and Luis Enrique Labrador, who are on the President's list of 53 political prisoners, were once again arrested while attempting to join a pro-democracy meeting of the Movement for a New Republic. Another opposition activist who was not on the list, Miguel Daniel Borroto Vazquez, was beaten, arrested, and ultimately imprisoned in El Vivac detention center.

"The President's flawed and arbitrary list of 53 political prisoners falls far short of a condition that should be non-negotiable: the permanent release of ALL political prisoners. When the Castro regime re-arrests political prisoners after the President "negotiated" their release, it makes a mockery of the entire bad deal. But, as the administration has conceded several times, the President is too invested in his policy of appeasement to change course over the regime's human rights abuses. It remains an utter disgrace that a decent human rights record, and Cuban prisons emptied of innocent men and women, was not part of the President's deal."