Following months of denials, Cuban authorities acknowledged for the first time Tuesday that they are prosecuting more than 700 people who protested against the government last July, including 55 between ages 16 and 18.

As the trials continued this week, authorities also disclosed that 25 minors under 16 faced penalties like internment in centers handled by the Ministry of Interior, and that 28 detainees between 16 and 18 are in jail.

The admission comes in an Attorney General’s office press release responding to intense criticism by Cuban activists, family members and the international community for the crackdown on the July 11 protesters. But the statement defended the trials as complying with due process and showed little indication that authorities would lower the decades-long sentences that several protesters face.

Another 60 young Cubans ages 19 and 20 will stand trial, according to the release.

According to the statement, government prosecutors have charged 790 Cubans in connection to the demonstrations. Of those, 710 have been formally accused of committing vandalism and other crimes and have already been sent to trial. The document says that most of them, 69%, are in jail.

“They have tried to deny that there are children deprived of their liberty, which is what we have been saying for quite some time,” said Salomé García Bacallao, a Spain-based activist with Justicia 11J, a group documenting the detentions and trials. “They have just recognized a number of minors under 18 are being prosecuted but continue to treat them as if they were not children, which contradicts the United Nations’ Convention on the Rights of the Child, which Cuba signed.”

Some of the imprisoned minors, like Rowland Castillo, 17, who requires surgery, are being treated at children’s hospitals.

“It can’t be that they’ve been treated at pediatric hospitals like children, and yet they are accused like adults,” the activist said. “The youth really led the demonstrations, but the severity by which they have been treated is disproportionate,” she added.

Lacking official data, activists with groups Justicia 11J and legal-aid organization Cubalex had been verifying the arrests and trials of the protesters by tracking down their family members and friends. The organizations regularly update a public list, currently showing 724 protesters in jail.

The data released Tuesday confirm that the concerns of activists and foreign governments were not unfounded, as the official number of minors arrested is even higher than previously reported by the two organizations.

The total number of protesters detained is likely higher too, as the cases reported by the Attorney General’s office include only those officially indicted. Like Jonathan Torres Farrat, 17, other jailed protesters are still waiting for charges.

“The release is a whitewashing attempt by the dictatorship, but it shows human-rights organizations did their job well in Cuba and that their numbers were reliable,” said activist Saily González, who lives in Villa Clara in central Cuba . “Now ,foreign media accredited in Cuba, which argued that they could not write about the detentions because they could not independently verify the numbers, have information to contrast.”

Relatives of some protesters have defied authorities and faced harassment, fines and arrests for speaking out to let the world know about the crackdown. Activists believe the disclosure came due to pressure by the international community.

The Biden administration imposed sanctions on several security agencies and officials involved in the detention and trials of the protesters. The U.S. State Department also launched a social-media campaign with the hashtag #JailedForWhat to highlight the ongoing trials and the harsh sentences.

Assistant Secretary of State Brian Nichols tweeted last week that more than 260 protesters have stood trial since Dec. 13, “including teenagers threatened with prison sentences longer than they’ve been alive. We won’t ignore these injustices and urge the international community to join us.”

On Monday, Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno Rodríguez responded.

“The United States is well aware that the current judicial processes in Cuba are conducted in full compliance with the law and internationally accepted standards,” he said. The U.S. “lies to tarnish Cuba’s exemplary work in the protection of its children and justify criminal coercive measures.”

In October, Human Rights Watch published a damning report concluding the Cuban government engaged in systematic abuses against those arrested for protesting in July as part of a plan to suppress dissent. Human Rights Watch documented violations of due process in the legal proceedings. Indictments shared with the media show that the prosecution’s witnesses are usually police officers and that some of the protesters have been sentenced for shouting anti-government slogans or allegedly throwing one stone that did not cause injuries.

Several family members have also denounced that after the arrests they did not know the whereabouts of their loved ones for several days or weeks.

Videos of the popular uprising that took authorities by surprise show the demonstrations were largely peaceful. Some protesters overturned police cars and broke shop windows, mostly in government stores selling food in dollars. But the Attorney General’s office portrayed the events as highly violent, partly to respond to the criticism of charging protesters with sedition, a political crime punishable by long sentences.

The trials of another 39 protesters continue this week in Havana, Mayabeque and Matanzas, including that of long-term dissident Felix Navarro and his daughter, Saily Navarro.

“They feel they have the power,” García Bacallao said, “and they are not willing to make any type of concession to alleviate the suffering of the families of these prisoners.”