From our Bureau of Heroic Virtue with some assistance from our Bureau of Potentially Lethal Noble Gestures
José Daniel Ferrer is not bending. Naturally, Castro, Inc. isn’t bending either, but rather making his life in prison as awful as possible. He is no longer in solitary confinement, but instead sharing a very small cell with five other prisoners. In that cell, the lights remain on at all times, and the space is infested with flies and bedbugs. If you are a praying person, please pray for José Daniel.
Loosely translated from Marti Noticias
Cuban political prisoner José Daniel Ferrer expressed his firm decision to continue his hunger strike until his demands are heard, according to a phone call he made from Mar Verde prison in Santiago de Cuba to his wife, activist Nelva Ismaray Ortega Tamayo.
“Let everyone know that José Daniel would rather die than surrender,” stated the leader of the Patriotic Union of Cuba (UNPACU), who, as of this Tuesday, has been on a voluntary fast for six days in protest against his jailers’ prohibition of keeping the food his family provides him.
Ferrer emphasized that it is precisely because of his steadfast stance in his fight for change in Cuba that he has been mistreated in prison, enduring “one attack after another, and increasingly severe ones.”
With the hunger strike, the political prisoner is also demanding better conditions for his imprisonment. During the call, he described to his wife the cell where he has been confined with five other people since being returned to Mar Verde prison from Boniato prison’s infirmary on November 22.
In the cell, the lights remain on at all times, and the space is infested with flies and bedbugs. The cell “might be suitable for four people, not six.” Despite the prisoners’ complaints, the prison authorities “do nothing” to improve the situation, detailed the UNPACU leader.
Although he is drinking water, Ferrer said he is beginning to feel the effects of the prolonged fast, experiencing problems with his gums, throat, and kidneys, as well as muscle pain resulting from a brutal beating he suffered last November.
“I don’t feel well, but I will resist. I will continue the hunger strike until this situation they have created against me is resolved,” declared the opposition leader.
Ferrer sent a message of support and solidarity “to all political prisoners facing similar situations” in other Cuban prisons. He also expressed condolences to the family of UNPACU activist Manuel de Jesús Guillén Esplugas, who died in the maximum-security Combinado del Este prison. Guillén’s mother has rejected the official version that her son committed suicide, accusing the authorities of causing his death.
At the time of this report, the political prisoner’s sister, U.S.-based activist Ana Belkis Ferrer García, stated on Facebook that Ferrer’s wife and two of his children were heading to Mar Verde prison after being notified by authorities that they would be granted “the visitation hour that was cut short on the 5th of this month, and that they would be allowed to deliver the food and hygiene products denied that day.”
The purpose of this concession by the authorities, Ana Belkis added, is to persuade the opposition leader to end his hunger strike.
Continue reading HERE in Spanish