The US accuses the Cuban regime of torturing him: “They beat him and subject him to unbearable conditions for demanding basic rights”
14ymedio, Madrid, October 7, 2025 — The uncertainty about the immediate future of the leader of the Patriotic Union of Cuba, José Daniel Ferrer, is extreme since the possibility came to light on Friday that he would accept exile in order to leave the prison of Mar Verde, in Santiago de Cuba, where he has been since his release was revoked in April. On Monday, his wife, Nelva Ismarays Ortega Tamayo, was detained for several hours after demanding explanations for being denied a conjugal visit this week.
Ana Belkis Ferrer, sister of the opponent, said on Monday that Ortega Tamayo went to the prison to visit her husband, but Captain Liván Laguart Riquelme refused her entry “for no clear reason.” At 12:30 pm, with Ferrer’s wife standing in front of the entrance to protest the decision, four agents of the Ministry of the Interior arrested her, saying that she should accompany them to the Research and Operations Center in Versalles so that someone could explain why she was not allowed to visit.
After taking her there, they kept her for almost half an hour inside the patrol car under the sun. They then drove her to an office where the aforementioned repressors were located: Major Raúl, another with a camera filming and another who initiated the threats. “According to them,” said Ferrer’s sister, “this was her last warning about going on social networks and publishing against the authorities and institutions of the regime, in addition to the current situation of my brave brother. And if another video or publication came out everything would go backwards in terms of the exit process, both for him and for the family, and she would be imprisoned.” She adds that her sister-in-law returned home around 2:00 pm in the afternoon.
“According to them, this was her last warning about going on social networks and publishing against the authorities and institutions of the regime, in addition to the current situation of my brave brother”
The leader of UNPACU published a letter on Friday through his relatives in which he explained why he has taken the decision to accept the insistent demands of State Security for him to leave Cuba. In recent months, he said, “the dictatorship’s ruthlessness against me has exceeded all limits,” with “beatings, torture, humiliation, threats and extreme conditions,” as well as “the theft of my food and toiletries” and threats against his family.
However, he explained in the letter, “since they began the procedures to achieve this end, as always happens, the agents of the regime have been playing very dirty: they continue with the plan of harassment, threats, humiliations, thefts and extreme conditions.” Ferrer argued that the authorities want him to demand a dialogue between the Catholic Church and Washington, among other things, something he refuses to carry out, putting his exit in check.
In this context, on Tuesday the pro-Castro media Cubainformación published an article entitled “The front, the table and the script: The truth behind the speech of dignity and persecution about José Daniel Ferrer.” It brings to mind the video that the authorities published in 2019 with the intention of discrediting him during his arrest, in which he was seen with allegedly self-inflicted injuries. The text insists that he is not “a ‘persecuted patriot’ forced to leave Cuba by the ‘Castro dictatorship'” but runs an organization of “subversive” character that receives money from abroad “as part of the strategy to destabilize our country.”
Furthermore, the article states that Ferrer – who was imprisoned during the 2003 Black Spring – has been in prison not as an opponent but as a “mercenary” and adds that he practices a “destabilizing activism, with subsequent arrests for repeated provocations against the Cuban institutional order.” The report categorically denies that he was tortured, which explains why it was published.
On Monday, hours before the article came out, the US had insisted on condemning the ill-treatment and “torture” suffered by the opponent. In a statement sent to Martí Noticias, the State Department said that “the Cuban regime continues to brutally repress” Ferrer, who is “a leading voice for freedom on the Island.”
“The United States is with him and will continue to act against the illegitimate and oppressive regime in Cuba until all political prisoners are released”
“The Cuban regime tortures José Daniel Ferrer, beats him and subjects him to intolerable conditions for demanding basic rights. But neither the beatings nor the isolation have succeeded in silencing him,” said the State Department. “The United States is with him and will continue to act against the illegitimate and oppressive regime of Cuba until all political prisoners are released.”
The spokesperson also refused to make statements on whether there are any efforts to facilitate the departure of Ferrer and his family. “We have nothing to share right now,” he said.
Translated by Regina Anavy
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