Madrid/The statement with which the Cuban Ministry of Foreign Affairs announced the departure of José Daniel Ferrer from the Island, Forcibly exiled, he has not left anyone indifferent. It is the most read note this Monday in the official media Cubadebate –where a good number of readers have signed up for the lynching of the leader of the Patriotic Union of Cuba (Unpacu)– and it has not gone down well in exile.
The Council for the Democratic Transition in Cuba (Ctdc) released a statement in which it accuses the regime of lying repeatedly, especially when it states that Ferrer has agreed to leave by his own decision. “There is no exercise of will in an act resulting from coercion, pressure and blackmail,” he reproaches in the text.
The document reviews the ordeal experienced by the Unpacu leader during the last four years – which add up to a long list of entries and exits in prison throughout his life –, since he arrived at the Mar Verde prison, in Santiago de Cuba, after being arrested when he tried to join the anti-government demonstrations on July 11, 2021. “There he was subjected to torture, beatings, isolation, deprivation sensory and psychological harassment at the hands of their jailers and common inmates under the direct command of the head of the prison,” he recalls.
“There he was subjected to torture, beatings, isolation, sensory deprivation and psychological harassment at the hands of his jailers and common inmates under the direct command of the head of the prison.”
The opponent’s almost 20 years in Cuban prisons and his concern for the safety of his family have forced Ferrer to accept exile as the only alternative. “The journey from the prison to the airport is not traveled by the will of a prisoner of conscience,” says the Ctdc.
The Foreign Ministry’s statement is about “whitewashing barbarism with legalistic language,” the organization accuses, which affirms forcefully that there is no record of any request from the US Government claiming Ferrer, as that text says. Both the Council itself and the opponent’s wife, Nelva Ortega-Tamayo, presented legal appeals in order to formally extinguish a sentence that had already been served. “It would be intelligent for the Government to assume that the State lie as a tool of government is an already exhausted resource,” they reproach.
The document adds that there has never been an exhaustive evaluation by the Prosecutor’s Office on the case of Ferrer, to whom “no rights were applied; only force, torture and the criminalized judicialization of human and constitutional rights.” The Ctdc recalls that international legality does not also protect forced exile, so the Foreign Ministry could not be complying with any type of commitment acquired regarding the protection of people’s rights, as attributed.
“Talking about ‘commitment to the law’ while torturing a man is a hypocrisy that offends human conscience,” the statement argues, in which the message published by the ministry is called a “political operation,” in order to project an image of “political rationality,” when “monitoring, punishing and expelling those who think and act differently from the regime is all the rationality it exhibits.”
Meanwhile, in the heat of the publication of the note in the official media, numerous defenders of the regime have come to accuse Ferrer of being a “bad counterrevolutionary”, a “criminal” and a “subject paid by the CIA”, although some defenders have come out, if not the leader of Unpacu, of understanding. “The only thing I see with more pain is how every day the sidewalks that divide Cubans, families and our people get further apart. Every day that passes, each side clings more to its stick. Well, nothing, move on, life goes on,” wrote one user.
Meanwhile, Ferrer is living his first hours in Miami, from where he has published his “first message from this great nation”, in reference to the United States. In it, he emphasizes that he arrived there through forced exile or banishment and, after praising the neighboring country and its Government, he refers to his relatives in Cuba and “brothers in struggle.”
“Thank you to the security personnel who accompanied us during the day. Tyranny can eliminate you anywhere,” he said, before personally thanking the influencer Alexander Otaola and those who have given him “the most beautiful hospitality in Miami.”
“We must unite and make our fight for freedom very effective. We must overthrow the infamous and criminal tyranny. (…) If we do what is due, I will soon be back. Even if I return to the dungeons of tyranny to receive blows and torture, but I am sure of Victory,” he stated, in line with his first words, this Monday, in his round of press in Miami.
