From our Bureau of Socialist Tolerance, Compassion, and Social Justice
Once again, José Daniel Ferrer’s family has been denied the right to visit him in prison, where he spends 24 hours a day in solitary confinement in a punishment cell. Back in April his wife was allowed a two-minute visit. No other family member has seen him since then. Given the fact that he has been repeatedly tortured, his family fears the worst and is now demanding proof he is alive.
Loosely translated from ADN Cuba
The wife of Cuban opposition leader José Daniel Ferrer, Nelva Ismarays Ortega Tamayo, demanded proof of life of the activist, who is being held in the maximum-security Mar Verde prison in Santiago de Cuba.
Ortega Tamayo attempted to visit Ferrer on July 29, 2024, to celebrate his birthday, but was denied access to the prison.
“Since April, when I was given those two minutes of proof of life, no one in the family has been able to see him,” she stated in an audio message disseminated by the Cuban Observatory for Human Rights.
The Cuban denounced that the prison authorities are determined to make him disappear.
She described that Ferrer remains “in that tiny and confined punishment cell, isolated from the entire prison community under inhumane, cruel, and degrading conditions, being subjected to mistreatment, torture, and both physical and psychological violence.”
The family demands not only proof of life but also “the restoration of his prison rights, his human rights, and above all, his immediate unconditional freedom,” Ortega Tamayo expressed.
José Daniel Ferrer, leader of the Patriotic Union of Cuba, was arrested in July 2021 and has been in prison since then.
In August of that year, a judge revoked his house arrest and ordered his imprisonment to serve the remaining 4 years and 14 days of the sentence imposed on him in 2020.