The arrests of “these two peaceful pro-democracy activists” occurred in a context of “intensifying authoritarianism.”
EFE (via 14ymedio), Madrid, 5 May 2025 — A total of 43 organizations, including political parties, unions, and NGOs, are demanding the “immediate” release of Cuban dissidents José Daniel Ferrer and Félix Navarro, after the Cuban government last week revoked their release from jail.
In a statement released this Monday by Prisoners Defenders (PD), they demand “coordinated and effective international diplomatic, political, and legal pressure to end the brutal repression.”
Among the signers of the document, in addition to the PD, are opposition political organizations such as the Council for the Democratic Transition in Cuba (CTDC) [Consejo para la Transición Democrática en Cuba], Ferrer’s Patriotic Union of Cuba (UNPACU), the Cuban Women’s Network [la Red Femenina de Cuba], and the Roots of Hopes Association in Spain [Asociación Raíces de Esperanza en España].
The signers believe that the arrests of “these two peaceful pro-democracy activists” occurred in a context of “intensifying authoritarianism by the Cuban regime, and just hours after the funeral of the same pope with whom the regime had agreed to their release.”
These actions further demonstrate that the 230 releases did not represent a gesture of openness
“These actions further demonstrate that the 230 releases, carried out under ignominious and unacceptable home-imprisonment conditions, did not represent a gesture of openness, but rather the opposite. The wave of repression and the hundreds of short-term arbitrary detentions demonstrate an even deeper regression by the regime,” according to the statement.
Ferrer and Navarro, who have been active in the opposition for decades, were released last January, following an agreement between Havana and Washington brokered by the Vatican in which Cuba agreed to release 553 inmates and the US agreed to remove the island from the list of states sponsoring terrorism.
Last Tuesday, the People’s Supreme Court revoked the releases of Ferrer and Navarro, alleging that they “failed to comply with the law during the probationary period they were serving.”
The Supreme Court charged the dissidents, stating that “they are people who publicly call, in their social and digital environments, for disorder and contempt of the authorities, and maintain public ties with the chargé d’affaires of the United States Embassy in Cuba.”
Navarro, 72 years old and with health problems, was serving a nine-year sentence for the crimes of public disorder, contempt, and assault.
According to the court, their arrests are based on two reasons: in Navarro’s case, because he left his municipality seven times without the judge’s permission, and, in Ferrer’s case, because the leader of UNPACU twice failed to appear before the judge.
In response, the signers contend that the arrests of both dissidents “do not constitute isolated events,” as “they are part of a systematic policy of repression against dissident and/or plural voices.”
Navarro, 72, who is in poor health, was serving a nine-year sentence for public disorder, contempt, and assault. Ferrer, 54, is serving a four-and-a-half-year sentence for unlawful deprivation of liberty, and assault.
Both were among the 75 opposition members arrested and sentenced during the Black Spring of 2003.
Translated by Tomás A.
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