Message from José Daniel Ferrer upon being released from prison
On Thursday, the dictatorship that has ruled Cuba for 66 years released from prison José Daniel Ferrer, the founder and leader of the Unión Patriótica de Cuba (Patriotic Union of Cuba or UNPACU), a group that describes itself as “the largest and most active non-violent political activism organization” operating in the Caribbean country.
Ferrer’s release comes following the decision of outgoing U.S. President Joe Biden to remove Cuba from the list of countries that sponsor terrorism, lift sanctions on companies run by Cuba’s military and to suspended a provision in a law allowing Cuban-Americans to seek compensation for property confiscated on the island. Ferrer’s release, along with those of more than 500 other prisoners - some of the among the more than 1,100 political prisoners the island’s Communist dictatorship has held for years - also follows talks with the Vatican.
As Cubans have struggled through chronic blackouts and suffer due to lack of medicine, documents recently obtained by the Miami Herald showed that Cuba’s military-run companies have been sitting on $4.3 billion hidden away in bank accounts for years.
Hundreds of innocent people including artist Luis Manuel Otero Alcántara and rapper Maykel "Osorbo" Castillo Pérez remain jailed in the government’s gulag.
Upon his release yesterday, José Daniel Ferrer made the following statement, which I have translated into English:
To my people, to the Cubans on the island, and also to those in exile, who are an integral part of our nation, my message is simple, it is easy and comes from the heart: Do not be afraid.
Do not be afraid to fight for a free, prosperous, and just Cuba. Do not be afraid to work for a better future for all Cubans, so that we do not have to go in search of freedom and better living conditions in other lands. Do not be afraid to confront the oppressor because the oppressor is increasingly frightened, increasingly weaker, and to the extent that we look him in the eye and confront him with dignity, with decorum, with courage, then the shorter his existence is, the less time he has left in power, the fewer abuses he can continue to commit.
Among all of us who suffer so many difficult situations, so much oppression, so much misery, among all of us, we can make a change in Cuba and we can put an end to oppression, to misery, to hunger, to widespread poverty and give Cuba and the Cuban people what we should always have had: A happy Cuba, a prosperous Cuba, a just Cuba.
That is my message.