SLP, Mexico.- Relatives, activists and Cuban organizations have demanded proof of life of the opposition leader and political prisoner José Daniel Ferrer, urgently hospitalized, after being attacked in the Mar Verde prison, Santiago de Cuba.
The opponent’s sister, Ana Belkis Ferrerreported this Wednesday on their social networks the fact, after having received the news.
“Yesterday afternoon, Tuesday, November 19, 2024, we were informed from Cuba that José Daniel Ferrer Garcia had been brutally beaten and taken from the Mar Verde prison. Today, a political prisoner confined in the Boniato prison told a relative of his that José Daniel is admitted to the hospital of said den of terror,” said Ferrer.
In his complaint, he demanded that the Cuban leaders show signs that his brother is still alive and wrote: “We demand that Raúl Castro, Díaz-Canel and all the members of that criminal dictatorship show signs of Ferrer’s life immediately, We hold them responsible for their physical and psychological integrity and in turn we demand their freedom and that of all detainees and political prisoners.”
This Thursday, the Council for the Democratic Transition in Cuba (CTDC), chaired by José Daniel Ferrer, ratified the words of Ana Belkis Ferrer and condemned the beating received by the leader.
According to the independent media Cuban Diary, The CTDC statement warned that an event had occurred that they had warned about in recent years: “The coordinator of the Patriotic Union of Cuba (UNPACU) and president of the Council for the Democratic Transition in Cuba (CTDC) has received a brutal beating in the Mar Verde prison, Santiago de Cuba, and he had to be urgently transferred to the Bonito prison hospital.”
The Ladies in White organization and the Cuban-American Foundation have joined the request for proof of life, noting that the opponent’s family does not know where he is or the conditions in which he is kept.
For its part, the Cuban Prisons Documentation Center recalled that in 2024, 17 repressive events have been registered against José Daniel Ferrer, among which they list confinement in a punishment cell, in inhumane conditions, for almost two years; and denial of family visits or lack of medical care.
Nelva Ismaray Ortegawife of the opponent, went to the Mar Verde prison this Thursday to investigate the life of her spouse and demand that the authorities be able to see him.
Ferrer has been detained since July 11, 2021 for trying to access the place where the protests were taking place in his province; A month later, a four-year prison sentence that he had been serving since 2020 in house confinement was revoked. This constitutes his third imprisonment for political reasons.
In the 2020 case, he was convicted along with Fernando González Vaillant and Roilán Zárraga Ferrer, who “are already past their time, and are still imprisoned,” Ferrer assured Ortega.
In 2003, José Daniel Ferrer was arrested during Cuba’s Black Spring. At that time he directed the Christian Liberation Movement and the Campaign in favor of the Varela Project in the eastern provinces. He was sentenced to 25 years in prison, after his death sentence was commuted. He was imprisoned for eight years for refusing exile. He was declared a prisoner of conscience by Amnesty International.
The ten years following his release he did not cease his opposition activism: he founded the UNPACU, and presides over the People’s Party and the Council for the Democratic Transition of Cuba.
