Despite his death in prison, his political opponent José Daniel Ferrer says he does not hate jailers who have been cruel to him. “He is the Gandhi of Cuba,” he said at the event Paris America Javier Larondo, President of Prisoners Defenders. We also interviewed her sister, Ana Belquis Ferrer, about the dire situation this famous Cuban competitor finds herself in.
First revision: 06/03/2023 – 16:47
“Since March 7, we know absolutely nothing about my brother José Daniel Ferrer,” says his sister Ana Belquis Ferrer. she explained Paris America Program On that day “Monsignor Dionisio García Ibáñez was authorized by the Dictatorship to render religious assistance to them.”
According to this Cuban, who currently lives in Texas, the opposition leader “lives in a punishment cell that is fully prepared to torture him physically and mentally, seeing absolutely nothing.” Lives completely isolated from the world, lives semi-naked, exposed. Aggressive mosquitoes that accompany and bite him all the time. He suffers from bacteria on his skin, he has gastric problems, which eating too little. She suffers from cramps and transient paralysis in her hands. Even with the deafness, says Ana Belkis Ferrer, “the noises in her ears subside and intensify, as well as the head There is also a sharp pain, which becomes less and less intense. He also suffers from high blood pressure, which is among other problems he has had in previous prisons.”
Most of the roughly 1,300 political prisoners currently in Cuban prisons are people with no experience as militants, who were detained in a wave of repression sparked by the July 2021 protests. This is not the case, but that of José Daniel Ferrer.
On 30 May, the prisoner defenders presented the “First Comprehensive Report on Torture in Cuba”. The president of this organization, Javier Larondo, said in Paris America that before the wave of repression against the demonstrations in July 2021 “most of the people in Cuban prisons were activists, human rights defenders, ie people a little ‘more’ now, in the last 12 For months there are 1,277 captive civilians languishing in Cuban prisons, who are neither mentally nor in any other way, prepared to face what has fallen. On them. The worst part is that all of them are being tortured,” says Cuban-Spanish Javier Larondo.
“Jose Daniel Ferrer, on the other hand, has been jailed several times,” says Larondo. In 2003, during the Black Spring, Ferrer obtained 50% or 60% of the signatures that helped Osvaldo Paya win the Sakharov Prize within the framework of the Varela project. At that time he spent eight years in jail and was released in 2011.
“Ferrer fed hundreds of people in Santiago de Cuba, gave them medical attention, organized crews to clear streets, built bridges, brought some towns together with others. He was a super-loved man.” , was a very social person. Very focused on the social,” Larondo recalls.
José Daniel Ferrer was jailed without participating in the July 2021 demonstrations, they say. “They have isolated him in a white cell, completely diaphanous, with a light, with a constant vibration. Constant sonic attacks. They have progressively tried to poison him with water. He is cruel neurological is in a state of psychomotor degradation. They are slowly killing him and yet, when he manages to speak with his wife, which happens once in a very long time, she does so with the rest of the Cuban population. And generally launches some words of encouragement, encouragement to the world which are impressive. He doesn’t hate his jailers, he wants to free them. They are priceless words which only a great man like him can utter The energy he exudes exudes good feelings, he is experiencing all the fall and is impressive despite all the pain and all the martyrdom that his jailers assign him, who do it viciously.
