Cuba frees prominent dissident leader José Daniel Ferrer as part of a deal cut with the US

Nora Gámez Torres, Miami Herald on Jan 16, 2025

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Cuban authorities on Thursday released prominent opposition leader José Daniel Ferrer, who had been in prison since 2021, as part of a deal cut with the Biden administration and the Vatican.

Cuban activist Rosa María Payá confirmed Ferrer’s release to the Miami Herald. Payá said she spoke to Ferrer at his home in Santiago de Cuba, the island’s second-largest city.

Payá said Ferrer refused to sign a document with several conditions for his release but was freed anyway. He told her he had been incommunicado for long periods.

Ferrer told her he was concerned about the fate of other opposition members who were still imprisoned and that the Cuban government was playing both the Biden administration and the Vatican by using the prisoners to get political concessions.

Ferrer, the leader of the dissident organization Patriotic Union of Cuba, was one of the most prominent prisoners the Cuban government had been holding as a political bargaining chip. He had previously been in prison as one of the members of the group of 75 dissidents arrested during the so-called Black Spring in 2003.

In what activists say was a fabricated case because of his political activities against the Communist government, he was confined to house arrest since April 2000, after being accused of allegedly attacking a man. When he got out of his house to join the historic anti-government protests on July 11, 2021, he was immediately arrested. A judge then revoked his conditional release and ordered Ferrer to serve 4 years and 14 days in prison, a time he had already completed last year.

His wife, Nelva-Ortega Tamayo, said he was kept in dire conditions at the Mar Verde prison in Santiago de Cuba. He was held incommunicado for several months at a time. Privately, U.S. officials had warned Cuban authorities of consequences if they let Ferrer die in prison.

On Tuesday, the White House said it had taken Cuba off the list of countries that sponsor terrorism and lifted sanctions on Cuban military companies to facilitate a deal brokered by the Vatican with the Cuban government to release political prisoners.

The Cuban government said it would release 553 prisoners as a gesture to Pope Francis. Groups that monitor political prisoners said authorities on Wednesday released 22 political prisoners who had been convicted for joining anti-government demonstrations on July 11, 2021. Luis Robles, 32, who was arrested in 2020 and sentenced to five years for walking alone on a Havana street holding a sign that said “No more repression,” was released Thursday, according to the group Justicia11J.

Activists have expressed concerns that the people had not been pardoned but were granted parole and given several conditions to meet, or they could be sent back to prison.

There have been fears that authorities could include ordinary prisoners in the group of those released or backtrack on the deal if the incoming president, Donald Trump, re-imposes the measures Joe Biden lifted.

On Wednesday, in his confirmation hearing for secretary of state, Florida Sen. Marco Rubio said he had “zero doubt” that Cuba should be included in the list of countries that sponsor terrorism and that the new Trump administration was not “bound” by Biden’s last-minute deals.

But Ferrer’s release Thursday suggests the Cuban government is trying to seize an opportunity and send a signal to the new administration that it is serious about improving relations, as the island’s economy continues to collapse. It also suggests that, like other governments around the world, Cuban leaders are fearful of what a Trump administration packed with hardliners and a Cuban American as its top diplomat could do.

“The Trump administration and Marco Rubio are just about to be in office. The dictatorship is scared,” said Ferrer’s brother, Luis Enrique Ferrer. “It’s a day of happiness, but the happiness is not complete until the other political prisoners are released and we end the dictatorship.”