José Daniel Ferrer’s release from prison, like that of Luis Robles, was one of the most anticipated since the Cuban regime’s announcement on Tuesday
14ymedio, Havana, 16 January 2025 — José Daniel Ferrer, leader of the Patriotic Union of Cuba (Unpacu), was released from prison this Thursday. “I don’t know the conditions, if it was under extracriminal license, if it was parole, I don’t know, but they say he’s going home,” Carlos Amel Oliva reported in a video broadcast by the Prisoners Defenders organization, and confirmed by the opponent’s sister, Ana Belkis Ferrer.
The dissident’s wife, Nelva Ortega, had been called the day before by the authorities to appear this morning at the Mar Verde prison, in Santiago de Cuba, where the opponent had been imprisoned since July 11, 2021.
In his first statements after his release, to Martí Noticias, Ferrer said: “I was kicked out of prison because I don’t accept conditional release.” The authorities, in any case, warned him that “if he does not comply with the rules of socialist society” they will “try him in court again.
I was kicked out of prison because I don’t accept conditional release”
The leader of Unpacu said that, although he has health problems, none affects his “desire to continue fighting for democracy and human rights.” “I’m ready, I’m going to continue doing what I’ve always done,” he said, while asking the opposition to “be more united than ever.”
In an interview with the Spanish newspaper El Mundo, Ferrer said he felt “embarrassed over this agreement, for the way in which the Biden administration and the Vatican have handled it.” And he continued: “According to the terms of the statement published by the regime, it seems that they have just defeated them in three rounds, as if by chance they decided to give freedom to the 553 prisoners.”
“If Biden and the Vatican don’t deny this, they are playing the game of a bully similar to Pablo Escobar, who does what he wants, an ally of Nicolás Maduro and Vladimir Putin. They [the Regime] boast that both Washington and the Pope have done what they wanted. They have no respect.”
In the same way, he estimated: “If the regime has not eliminated me like Oswaldo Payá, it is thanks to the solidarity of the European members of Parliament and the good press of the free world.”
For its part, the Council for the Democratic Transition in Cuba, of which Ferrer is president, celebrated this Thursday, in a statement, the release of the opponent, and “deeply thank the role of the Vatican in its mediation for this important step.” However, it clarified that other prisoners, such as Félix Navarro, 71, should also be released.
“The current releases are no more than a form of imprisonment without bars”
“We reiterate our urgent call for the immediate and unconditional release of all political prisoners and the decriminalization of dissent in Cuba,” they insist in their text. “Freedom cannot be conditioned. The current releases are nothing more than a form of imprisonment without bars, where rules of ‘good behavior’ are imposed.” “In reality, this means that anyone who exercises their right to freedom of expression will be sent back to prison to serve the rest of their sentence.”
In any case, the release of Ferrer, like that of Luis Robles Elizastigui, also this Thursday, was one of the most anticipated since the Cuban regime announced, on Tuesday night, that 553 people would be released from prison as part of a negotiation with the Vatican.
An hour earlier, President Joe Biden’s order to remove Cuba from the list of countries sponsoring terrorism had been made public, in addition to other measures, which the Island has done everything possible to dissociate from the release of prisoners.
Ferrer had been locked up in Mar Verde prison, without trial, since 11 July 2021, when he was arrested before being able to join the massive demonstrations of that day. His situation in prison, subjected to all kinds of abuse and harassment, has been denounced on numerous occasions not only by his family and by non-profit organizations such as Amnesty International and Prisoners Defenders, but also by international governments, including the United States and the European Union.
On November 18, the opponent had to be admitted to the hospital of the Santiago de Boniato prison after being beaten in Mar Verde
On November 18, the opponent had to be admitted to the hospital of the Santiago de Boniato prison after being beaten in Mar Verde by prison staff. His wife, Nelva Ortega, was able to see him in early December, for the first time in more than 20 months, during which he had been systematically denied a marital visit.
However, they did not give him access to the food that his family had brought, and he declared a hunger strike.
The dissident leader, part of the group of prisoners of the Black Spring of 2003, with a death sentence commuted to 25 years in prison, was released after eight years thanks to the efforts of the Vatican and the mediation of Spain. Since then, he never left his dissident work at the head of the Unpacu or, as a consequence, stopped being harassed by State Security.
For his part, Luis Robles Elizastigui, called the “young man with the placard” and arrested for holding up a sign on the central Boulevard San Rafael in December 2020 calling for the release of rapper Denis Solís, was serving a five-year sentence in the Combinado del Este maximum security prison, in Havana.
The 30-year-old activist has suffered several health problems since he entered the prison.
His mother, Yindra Elizastigui, one of the most active in demanding the freedom of her son and all political prisoners, expressed her bittersweet feelings on her social networks. “Today inside, from the sadness and consternation that my family is experiencing, taking into account the unjust confinement that my son Lester and my son-in-law Alejaime Lambert Reyes are still suffering, and the hospitalization of the father of my children, who is in intensive care due to a cerebral infarction, a ray of light has come to us,” she wrote about the release of Robles. She indicated “that he is only four months and days away from his total release” and apologized for not being “as expressive as usual.” “I need you to understand our pain,” she explained.
Just in February of last year, long after what he was due, Robles received his first prison pass and was able to return home to visit his family. The 30-year-old activist has suffered several health problems since he entered the prison, which have been reported by his mother, in addition to mistreatment, and ophthalmological and gastric complications. He has also been denied appropriate medical assistance.
#ExcarcelacionesCuba Luis Robles Elizastigui, llamado el “joven de la pancarta”, cumplía una condena de cinco años en la prisión de máxima seguridad Combinado del Este. En este video reflexiona sobre la forma en que fue excarcelado👇🏼 Crédito: Martí Noticias-Facebook pic.twitter.com/Bk4lds6qWx
— 14ymedio (@14ymedio) January 17, 2025
Little by little, without much official information and through, above all, social networks, the names of those released from prison have come to light. The Cuban government did not give further details about them, nor for what crimes they were convicted, nor if they are, effectively, political prisoners.
Dariel Cruz García, another of those released from prison on Wednesday, belongs to the latter group. His mother, Yaquelín Cruz García, tells 14ymedio how he has spent these first 24 hours in freedom. The woman says that she feels “good and happy” to finally have El Bolo by her side, as he is known in the neighborhood, although she fears that “anything can happen, because here in Cuba the situation is very bad and they want to put him back in jail.”
The anxiety over her son continues. “He is on probation and has to follow the rules imposed on him,” she explains. “If my son had been given total freedom and could leave the country, I would do everything I could to get him out of Cuba as soon as possible, even if he goes to Haiti,” she says. “Today they already summoned him to the police station, and until the moment his sanction ends, he has to walk the line so they don’t put him back in prison.”
“He is on probation and has to follow the rules imposed on him”
Cruz García, now 23 years old, was arrested on July 16, 2021, after participating on July 12 in the demonstrations that took place in La Güinera, in the Havana municipality of Arroyo Naranjo, where the only death of the 11J recognized by the authorities, Diubis Laurencio Tejada, took place at the hands of the police, who went unpunished. With a prosecutor’s request for 15 years in prison for sedition, he was sentenced to 8 years in prison, and managed, through a cassation trial, to be temporarily released with a change of sanction to correctional work with internment. Finally, he received a sentence of 5 years of correctional work with internment.
On Wednesday, the vice president of the People’s Supreme Court, Maricela Sosa Ravelo, clarified on state television that the measure is not an amnesty or a pardon, words that, in fact, do not appear in the statement issued on Tuesday by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. According to the official’s explanation, amnesty and pardon “entail the total extinction of the sanction,” something that does not happen in these cases.
In an interview with the spokesman for the regime, Humberto López, Ravelo said that, on the contrary, these prisoners have been given “benefits from early release.” If they do not fulfill the “obligations,” he warned, they could go back to prison. Those on the list were prosecuted for “dissimilar” crimes, which he listed: “Historic crimes such as theft, robbery with force. There are threats, there are injuries, there are disorders. There are also some people who were punished for sedition, but sedition is not a political crime.”
The crime of sedition, for example, was the one charged against the 11J demonstrators who received the highest sentences, up to 20 years in prison (later reduced in some cases).
Los excarcelados conocidos hasta el momento son:
The released prisoners, as of now, are:
- Reyna Yacnara Barreto Batista
- Lisdani Rodríguez Isaac
- Mailene Noguera Santiesteban
- Yessica Coimbra Noriega
- Rowland Jesús Castillo Castro
- Dariel Cruz García
- Donaida Pérez Paseiro
- Liván Hernández Sosa
- Katia Beirut Rodríguez
- José Miguel Gómez Mondeja
- Jorge Gabriel Arruebarruena León
- Magdiel Rodríguez García
- Rogelio Lázaro Domínguez Pérez
- César Adrián Delgado Correa
- Liliana Oropesa Ferrer
- Endris Fuentes Zamora
- Javier González Fernández
- Arturo Valentín Rivero
- Randy Arteaga Rivero
- Luis Robles Elizastigui
- José Daniel Ferrer García
- Jorge Luis Salazar Brioso
- Lisdiany Rodríguez Isaac
- Orlando Pineda Martínez
- Marlon Brando Díaz Oliva
- Ciro Alexis Casanova Pérez
- Juan Yanier Antomarchi Núñez
- Frank Daniel Roig Sotolongo
- Yandier García Labrada
- Eduin Rodríguez Fonseca
- Andro Ledesma Prieto
- Iris Belkis Oduardo Rodríguez
- Carlos Manuel Pupo Rodríguez
- Yunior Rodríguez Rivero
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