MIAMI, United States. – The opposition leader José Daniel Ferrer went into exile this morning, as confirmed to Cubanet by his own sister Ana Belkis Ferrer.
The political prisoner is heading to the United States, after accepting the forced exile imposed on him by the Cuban regime as a condition for his release. Ferrer left directly from the prison to the airport, surrounded by a strong police operation, on the way he was accompanied by personnel from the United States embassy in Cuba, he explained. Marti Notcias.
The opponent is currently traveling to Miami.
On October 3, a letter from José Daniel Ferrer, written in the Mar Verde prison, was made public. spread by his family on Facebookin which the leader of the UNPACU affirms that he had agreed to go into exile to protect his wife and children, but also denounces pressures and “humiliating” conditions of the regime.
“I have been a victim of cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment,” he wrote. “I only leave Cuba with my dignity and honor held high,” he added.
On October 6, the authorities of Mar Verde They denied conjugal visits to his wifeDr. Nelva Ismarays Ortega Tamayo, and they prevented her from seeing him. After the refusal, she stood in front of the prison, according to complaints published by her sister-in-law, Ana Belkis Ferrer, and by civil society organizations. days later were reported new restrictions, such as the ban on telephone calls.
Ferrer had been conditionally released from prison in mid-January, within the framework of a process mediated by the Vatican that involved hundreds of prisoners. However, on April 29, after the death of Pope Francis, the authorities revoked that measure and returned him to prison.
In his letter from prison, Ferrer affirms that State Security agents tried to force him to promote “a dialogue that leads to the shameful ‘negotiation’ of other times: release of political prisoners in exchange for the lifting of sanctions and other facilities for the dictatorship.” He also warns: “If my life and that of my family depends on me asking for such things, I prefer my death in this Nazi-style concentration camp.” In another passage he emphasizes: “I am ready to die, but not to live without honor, without dignity.”
Before being detained again last April, Ferrer had resumed community work in Santiago de Cuba, such as providing food assistance to vulnerable people, in the midst of an environment of surveillance and harassment.
Arrested in the so-called Black Spring of 2003 and sentenced to 25 years, he was released in 2011; That same year he founded the Patriotic Union of Cuba (UNPACU). In 2019, the European Parliament approved a resolution condemning his arbitrary detention, while Amnesty International issued urgent actions and, in 2020, denounced a trial with irregularities that ended in a sanction of house arrest.
On July 11, 2021, Ferrer was arrested again in Santiago de Cuba during the historic protests that spread throughout the Island that day.
