SLP, Mexico.- The United States embassy in Cuba requested this Tuesday the release of Jose Daniel Ferrer and expressed concern for the leader of the Patriotic Union of Cuba (UNPACU), brutally beaten last week in the Mar Verde prison, Santiago de Cuba.
In a social media publication, the diplomatic headquarters urged the Cuban regime to provide Ferrer’s family with evidence that he is alive, and to release him, along with the rest of the island’s political prisoners.
“We join the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights to express our deep concern about the mistreatment of José Daniel Ferrer by the Cuban government,” the Facebook post reads.
The message also indicated that the new head of mission, Mike Hammer, communicated this Tuesday afternoon with Ana Belkis Ferrer, sister of the opponent. Without providing more information about the call, the consular representation requested that the Government grant the family “direct access” to the political prisoner and demanded “the release of José Daniel, as well as all political prisoners in Cuba.”
On November 20, Ferrer’s sister reported for the first time the attack against the opposition leader in the Mar Verde prison.
Days later, based on the testimony of a source who managed to see Ferrer, he explained that he was injured and hospitalized.
Ana Belkis Ferrer reported in X (formerly Twitter) that the person who transmitted the information about his brother described him as “very thin, brutally beaten and with a wound on his face.”
He also explained that the authorities of the Cuban regime have limited access to the hospital to prevent other people from seeing him and reporting his condition.
“We continue to demand proof of life from my brave and selfless brother, as well as his immediate release and that of all detainees and political prisoners, and holding Raul Castro, Diaz Canel and all the hitmen involved in such a brutal and premeditated criminal act responsible.” , wrote Ana Belkis Ferrer on Facebook.
Nelva Ismaray Ortegawife of the opponent, went to the prison on Thursday to investigate the life of her spouse and demand that the authorities be able to see him, but the repressors continue to deny her that right.
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in his province; A month later, a four-year prison sentence that he had been serving since 2020 in house confinement was revoked.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.
He had been convicted in the 2020 case along with Fernando González Vaillant and Roilán Zárraga Ferrer, who “are already past their time, and are still imprisoned,” the opposition leader assured his wife.
José Daniel Ferrer was arrested in 2003 during Cuba’s Black Spring. In those years 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 and was declared a prisoner of conscience by Amnesty International.
After his release, his political activism did not cease. He founded UNPACU, and chairs the People’s Party and the Council for the Democratic Transition of Cuba.
