They demand proof of life from the Cuban regime for political prisoner José Daniel Ferrer
14ymedio/EFE, Havana, 22 November 2024 — The United States said on Thursday that it was “outraged” at the complaints of family members, human rights NGOs and Cuban dissident organizations that claim that the opponent and political prisoner José Daniel Ferrer has been hospitalized after receiving a “brutal beating.”
“Indignant to hear the reports that José Daniel Ferrer was beaten in prison and transferred to another facility,” said Brian Nichols, in charge of Latin America at the Department of State, in his X account.
“We call on the Government of Cuba to allow immediate access to his family and to release him, along with the nearly 1,000 political prisoners unjustly detained in Cuba,” it added.
Ferrer’s sister reported this Wednesday that she was aware of the situation thanks to the testimony of a prisoner in Boniato prison, in Santiago de Cuba, which has a hospital where Ferrer was taken from Mar Verde prison, in the same province, where he has been serving a sentence since 2021.
According to the sources, Ferrer was seriously assaulted, and not being able to be properly treated in the Mar Verde infirmary, had to be transferred.
The leader of the Patriotic Union of Cuba (Unpacu) has allegedly been admitted to Room A of the infirmary of the Boniato prison for three days, although no details are known about his state of health, which, according to his relatives, had deteriorated significantly in recent months from existing conditions related to his stays in prison.
The Council for the Democratic Transition in Cuba denounced “this act of violence, which shows the systematic dehumanization of conditions in Cuban prisons.”
The Cuban Democratic Directory, based in Miami, held responsible “the communist regime of Cuba in its entirety, especially the hitmen of the dictatorship who serve as prison officers. We demand proof of life for José Daniel Ferrer, his freedom and freedom for all political prisoners in Cuba,” adds the statement of the exile group.
Cuban civil society organizations and individuals asked last August that political prisoner of conscience José Daniel Ferrer García be proposed for the Sakharov Prize, awarded by the European Parliament.
Cuban civil society organizations and individuals asked last August that the political prisoner of conscience José Daniel Ferrer García be proposed for the Sakhorov Prize
According to the Cuban Observatory of Human Rights, based in Madrid, the petition was signed by a “coalition of human rights organizations” with the aim of achieving the “protection and safeguarding” of Ferrer, whose physical and psychological integrity is at “extreme risk.”
On 11 July 2021, Ferrer was arrested along with his son, for participating in popular protests against the Regime, when he was under house arrest after a four-year sentence imposed on him for “corruption” in 2019.
Since then, he has remained in Mar Verde, where he has been subjected to “ill-treatment and violations of UN recommendations on the treatment of prisoners.”
In December 2022, he began a hunger strike in prison, and since March 2023, he has not received family or conjugal visits and is in an isolated cell with hardly any light.
His last known visitors were the Archbishop of Santiago de Cuba, Dionisio García Ibáñez, and the priest Camilo de la Paz, in charge of the Pastoral Penitentiary of the diocese, on September 7. According to his wife, Nelva Ortega Tamayo, they found him in a “not entirely good” state of health, although he was strong in spirit.
Translated by Regina Anavy
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