Activists and groups advocating individual freedom in Cuba denounced the jailing in maximum security prisons of three peaceful opponents, including Ivonne Malleza Galano, who this year carried out a series of daring street protests.

The arrests coincide with the massive amnesty announced by Cuban leader Raúl Castro of about 2,900 Cuban prisoners. Five political prisoners were also released, according to information given on Tuesday by Elizardo Sánchez, director of the illegal but tolerated Cuban Commission of Human Rights and National Reconciliation, based in Havana.

“Suddenly the signs are very negative,” Sánchez told El Nuevo Herald. “Because while there is an amnesty of criminal and political prisoners, three people who simply staged a small peaceful protest on the streets without any kind of force or violence are being jailed.”

Malleza was transferred to Manto Negro women’s jail in Havana together with dissident Isabel Hayde Alvarez Mosqueda. Both could be sentenced to five years in prison. The third opponent jailed is Malleza’s husband, Ignacio Martínez Montero.

Malleza, a member of the group the Ladies in White, began to draw attention in the last few months because of her work in the opposition movement.