HAVANA (AP) - Prominent Cuban dissident José Daniel Ferrer left the island Monday for exile in the U.S. at the request of the U.S. government, Cuban and U.S. authorities confirmed.
The director of bilateral relations for the Cuban Foreign Ministry, Alejandro García, told The Associated Press that Ferrer, 55, departed before noon from his hometown Santiago in eastern Cuba en route to Miami.
Ferrer spoke to media outlets after arriving.
“I am both happy and sad. And that sadness is because I never thought about leaving Cuba,” he said after arriving to Miami. “We need to get our political prisoners out of the regime’s prisons. And we must urge the international community to give us the support we deserve.”
U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio confirmed Ferrer’s arrival on Monday “after suffering years of abuse, torture, and threats to his life in Cuba,” he said in a statement.
Ferrer gained international acclaim as part of a group of 75 opposition figures imprisoned and put on trial in 2003. Negotiations with the Catholic Church, Spain and then-president Raúl Castro led to their freedom between 2010 and 2011 — on the condition of leaving the island.
Ferrer refused and instead founded the Patriotic Union of Cuba, a leading political opposition organization not legally recognized by the government.
When thousands took to the streets in 2021 to protest food shortages and power outages and call for the end of the Communist government, he was imprisoned once again even though he was already on house arrest at the time.
The U.S. had already publicly called for Ferrer’s release and Amnesty International included him in a list of a half-dozen prisoners of conscience. In his statement Monday, Rubio called for the release of another “700 unjustly detained political prisoners.”
Ferrer was released in January as part of negotiations with Cuba and the Catholic Church to free more than 500 prisoners. But authorities imprisoned him again in April after accusing him of failing to comply with the terms of his release.
“They would put a stick in my mouth and cover my nose and mouth to asphyxiate me,” Ferrer said. “Then they put in a funnel and poured down a liter of putrid soup.”
In early October, Ferrer’s family began to circulate a letter in which he accepted his exile. The terms of the agreement to leave the island are unknown, but the Cuban Foreign Ministry said in a statement Monday that he traveled with “members of his family.”
The Council for Democratic Transition, an opposition group that Ferrer belongs to, called his departure a “profoundly human relief” after harassment against him and his family following the letter.
Cuba has repeatedly accused Ferrer and other opposition leaders of being financed by the U.S. government as it continues its policy of economic sanctions against the island to push for regime change.
The terms of Ferrer’s imprisonment were modified so that his departure was in line with Cuban law and the constitution, according to Ana Hernández of the Attorney General’s Office. She did not specify how the terms were modified or details of the negotiations.
“The struggle continues with efforts regulated within and outside of Cuba,” Ferrer said. “Those inside Cuba cannot come out of the oppression and slavers without those outside of it. And those outside of Cuba cannot topple the communist dictatorship without those on the inside.”
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