REPUBLIKA.CO.ID, HAVANA -- A pair of 18-year-old twin brothers are among the political prisoners released by Cuba as it moves towards normalizing ties with the United States, an activist said Wednesday.

Cuba has begun setting free some of the 53 political prisoners it agreed to release as part of the historic thawing of ties, the US State Department announced Tuesday.

Among them were the two brothers arrested in December 2012 in the eastern city of Santiago de Cuba, while protesting outside a police station to demand release of a third brother.

"The brothers Diango Vargas Martin and Bianco Vargas Martin have been released. This is 100 percent confirmed," Elizardo Sanchez, the head of the Cuban Human Rights and National Reconciliation Committee, told AFP.

The brothers were tried in 2013 for disturbing public order and violence against an officer, according to the commission.

Sanchez said the twins and their older brother, Alexei, are members of the opposition Patriotic Union of Cuba (UNPACU), which is active especially in the southeast of the Communist-run island.

US President Barack Obama ordered his administration to initiate steps to normalize relations with Cuba last month in a deal that included the list of 53 political prisoners.

Neither Cuba nor Cuban media has reported on Tuesday's releases, and the US State Department gave no figures on the number of prisoners freed nor their identities.

Havana has long accused dissidents of being US "mercenaries."

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