Release
Espinosa was released from prison along with fellow writer Raúl Rivero on November 29, 2004, after serving just over 19 months of his prison sentence; It was his sixty-fourth birthday. The authorities granted him medical parole because his already poor health had declined seriously during his incarceration.
After his release, he called on the government to release the remaining Black Spring prisoners, stating, "The government really committed a very big error with us. We are completely peaceful and we want only the reconciliation of Cuban society."
In 2006, Espinosa stated his opposition to U.S. funding for the Cuban dissident movement, calling it "counterproductive" and stating that the Cuban people must solve its own problems. Following Raul Castro's assumption of the presidency, Espinosa expressed his hope that Castro could be the Deng Xiaoping of Cuba, improving the economy and the standard of living.
Read more about this topic: Oscar Espinosa Chepe
Famous quotes containing the word release:
“As nature requires whirlwinds and cyclones to release its excessive force in a violent revolt against its own existence, so the spirit requires a demonic human being from time to time whose excessive strength rebels against the community of thought and the monotony of morality ... only by looking at those beyond its limits does humanity come to know its own utmost limits.”
—Stefan Zweig (18811942)
“The shallow consider liberty a release from all law, from every constraint. The wise man sees in it, on the contrary, the potent Law of Laws.”
—Walt Whitman (1819–1892)
“We read poetry because the poets, like ourselves, have been haunted by the inescapable tyranny of time and death; have suffered the pain of loss, and the more wearing, continuous pain of frustration and failure; and have had moods of unlooked-for release and peace. They have known and watched in themselves and others.”
—Elizabeth Drew (1887–1965)