The leader of UNPACU began a hunger strike this Saturday to denounce the poor conditions at the Mar Verde prison.
14ymedio, Havana, July 1, 2025 — Around eleven o’clock on Tuesday morning, Nelva Ortega, wife of political prisoner José Daniel Ferrer, was arrested in Santiago de Cuba. The activist was also arrested while demanding a proof of life for Ferrer, who began a hunger strike on Saturday to denounce the bad conditions facing prisoners in Mar Verde prison, where he is detained.
The prison authorities denied the woman a visit to Ferrer, and “two Castro thugs arrested Nelva and took her to an unknown location,” according to a Facebook post by Ana Belkis Ferrer García, sister of the leader of the Patriotic Union of Cuba (UNPACU). To date, the whereabouts of Ortega are unknown, although she is presumed to be in the custody of State Security.
The two minors who accompanied the doctor, her young son Daniel José and Ferrer’s daughter Fátima Beatriz, had to return to UNPACU headquarters in Altamira.
Ferrer also seeks to denounce the decision of the Cuban regime to send him back to Mar Verde
The political prisoner’s hunger strike is not only a form of protest against “the abuses, hunger, rotten food and contaminated water that makes so many prisoners sick,” as his sister detailed in an earlier note. Ferrer also seeks to denounce the decision of the Cuban regime to send him back to Mar Verde on April 29, three months after his release from prison.
The Supreme Court revoked the opponent’s parole, granted last January after a negotiation betw
