Cuban Prisoners Defenders (CPD) has asked the high representative of the European Union for Foreign Policy, Josep Borrell, to intercede “immediately” in favor of the opposition José Daniel Ferrer, leader of the Patriotic Union of Cuba (Unpacu), imprisoned since last July 11.
It’s a statement posted this monday, the Madrid-based organization denounces that Ferrer is “tortured, ill and intoxicated with psychotropic drugs” inside the Mar Verde prison, in Santiago de Cuba.
In its document, CPD recalls that the opponent was arrested on 11J before he could arrive at the demonstration that, as in dozens of cities throughout the island, took place in Santiago, and that until October 19 he was not allowed a called his wife, Dr. Nelva Ismarays Ortega.
In it, the NGO statement includes, Ferrer denounces that his cell, the same one where he has been the almost four months of confinement that he has been in and from which he has not come out to receive sunlight (they only take him out to the corridor for 10 minutes says the activist), it is “totally bricked up”, painted white, and in it “the air does not flow, there is no window that communicates with the outside, absolutely nothing can be seen outside”.
“The reluctance to change his cell, as well as the works carried out in it”, denounces the organization, “indicate that it could be technologically prepared for torture”
In addition, he denounces “a constant noise in his head as if they were crickets, constantly sounding in an unbearable way”, which causes him a continuous headache. CPD asserts that both in that call and in a second one, which took place on November 5, it was possible to verify “a constant sound very similar to that of crickets.”
“The reluctance to change his cell, as well as the works carried out in it”, denounces the organization, “indicate that it could be technologically prepared for torture.” As Ferrer himself told his wife, his cell is surrounded by two other empty punishment cells that do have windows.
The opponent, the text continues, “went on a hunger strike after the first call, so that they could pass him a cell with some ventilation”, but instead of passing him to the adjoining cells, the jailers called a team of masons that they cut a hole and put in a small window.
“Having made such a masonry effort compared to the alternative of moving it to one of the adjoining cells indicates that such a room can be prepared not only with cameras, but with any technology that may be designed to cause the noises and waves that José Daniel attributes as the cause of his intense and recurrent headache “, claims the NGO.
It should be remembered that one of the hypotheses of the origin of the so-called Havana syndrome, to which CPD does not refer in its document and which has caused headaches and other neurological disorders in more than 200 American diplomats and their families, it is precisely that a sound “like crickets” serves to camouflage some type of attack with radio frequency energy.
Prisoners Defenders also denounces that, in addition to recurring headaches, Ferrer suffers from mouth bleeding, shortness of breath and loss of vision, without being given adequate medication.
On the contrary, the NGO details, he is being administered Alprazolam, “one of the three most powerful oral benzodiazepines on the market that has been shown to cause suicidal tendencies and respiratory depression, two effects that Ferrer would be suffering, among other very serious side effects that the drug possesses. “.
On the contrary, the NGO details, he is being administered Alprazolam, “one of the three most potent oral benzodiazepines on the market that has been shown to cause suicidal tendencies and respiratory depression.
The opponent was also injected, against his will, with the Abdala vaccine, assuring him that the World Health Organization had approved it. “In the face of such blatant deceptions, it is not even possible to know if he was really administered such a vaccine, or any other drug,” says CPD, who points out that the family fears that “provoking altered states of consciousness will provide the excuse for the regime to imprison him. in a psychiatric institution, something that allows us to go much further even with the injuries to be caused “.
By the way, the organization recalls “these practices against political prisoners have already been carried out on other occasions”, as in the cases of Óscar Peña and Adrián Cedeño.
In addition to the appeal to Josep Borrell, Prisoners Defenders addresses “the European Commission, the Government of Canada, the Government of Norway, and all those governments through which the regime still relies on financial and political assets, and therefore they have the margin and the tools to demand respect for human rights, “so that they” immediately collaborate to prevent this slow and cruel murder of a notable human rights defender. “
So far, the only relative who has been able to see Ferrer in prison has been his son, José Daniel Ferrer Cantillo, last October 8, for just 20 minutes and always under surveillance. Then, the family of the opponent denounced that he was in a “tiny and reduced isolation cell, a place where he remains” in inhuman and degrading conditions, half naked “and that he was in” very poor health. “
“He could hardly speak to his son,” said his sister, Ana Belkis Ferrer, because from the day before the meeting, the dissident suffered from “severe headaches, chills, body aches and shortness of breath, to the point that asked to be injected with Diclofenac again. “
José Daniel Ferrer is serving four years in prison imposed by a court in February 2020 for the alleged crime of “injury and deprivation of liberty” against a third party. Until the moment of his arrest, the national coordinator of Unpacu enjoyed a subsidiary sanction that kept him free.
The People’s Provincial Court of Santiago de Cuba justified its decision in that it considers that Ferrer maintained “an attitude contrary to the requirements that he must comply with” because he did not establish a labor relationship and assumed on several occasions “incorrect behavior and defiance of the authority in compliance of its functions “.
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