The dissident José Daniel Ferrer, declared “prisoner of conscience” by Amnesty International, was released Thursday in Cuba, as part of the agreement negotiated with the Catholic Church after the island’s removal from the American blacklist of countries supporting terrorism.
“We just arrived. Thank God he is home.”in the province of Santiago de Cuba (east), some 900 km from Havana, Nelva Ortega, the wife of the 54-year-old dissident who had been in detention for more than three years, told AFP by telephone. years.
José Daniel Ferrer had been declared “prisoner of conscience” by the human rights organization Amnesty International in August 2021. He was imprisoned on July 11, 2021, the date on which he attempted to join the anti-government protests which shook the country, the largest since the advent of the Castro revolution in 1959.
A month later, a court revoked his parole and sent him back to prison to finish serving a four-and-a-half year prison sentence to which he had been sentenced in 2020, accused of, among other things, hitting a man, which he denies.
“New beginning”
A long-time dissident, José Ferrer was one of the 75 political prisoners arrested in 2003 during the “Black Spring”a wave of strong repression against dissent led by the power of Fidel Castro. He was then sentenced to 25 years in prison and released in 2011, after a negotiation between the Cuban government and the Catholic Church. He had refused to leave the island in exchange for his release.
-The release of prisoners resumed Thursday in Cuba, after the release the day before of around twenty imprisoned demonstrators, in the wake of the island’s removal from the American blacklist of countries supporting terrorism. Four detainees, all convicted for their participation in the anti-government protests of July 2021, left a prison located in San Miguel del Padron, a neighborhood on the outskirts of Havana, early in the morning, AFP journalists noted.
“Thank you for giving me this opportunity, once again, in life. It’s a new beginning.”declared, moved, to AFP the young Marlon Brando Diaz, sentenced to 18 years in prison for his participation in the demonstrations, while his family waited for him in front of the penitentiary center. Also awaited by their families, three other prisoners, held in the same prison, were released, according to AFP journalists.
The Cuban government on Tuesday pledged to release 553 prisoners in a deal brokered with help from the Catholic Church, after outgoing US President Joe Biden announced the communist island’s surprise withdrawal from the blacklist which includes Iran, North Korea, and Syria.
