His wife, Nelva Ismarays Ortega Tamayo, denounced that the agents had limited themselves to accepting the “bag” of food and medicine she brought.
14ymedio, Havana, 10 May 2024 — The Mar Verde high-security prison authorities in Santiago de Cuba prevented political prisoner José Daniel Ferrer’s family from visiting him last Monday. In an audio sent via WhatsApp, his wife, Nelva Ismarays Ortega Tamayo, denounced that the jailers had limited themselves to accepting the “bag” of food and medicine that she brought to the leader of the Patriotic Union of Cuba (UNPACU).
Ortega Tamayo was scheduled to make a regular visit to her husband and was accompanied by her four-year-old son, Daniel José, and her stepdaughter, Fátima. The agents blocked their way and only accepted “the bag with food, hygiene products, toiletries and some medicines.”
This has been happening for “more than a year,” laments the woman, who sees in this act a constant and unpunished violation of her husband’s rights, and in addition to this, they have cancelled their “family and marital visits” without prior notice. On May 3, she exemplifies, a conjugal visit was scheduled, but the prison guards made her wait several hours only to tell her that she could not see Ferrer, thus showing off their “abuse of power so characteristic of them.”It is “psychological torture,” to which she is already accustomed, says Ortega Tamayo.
“The dictatorship insists on keeping him isolated not only from the rest of the prison population but also from his own family,” she adds. Ferrer remains “in the same punishment and isolation cell since August 14, 2021, under inhuman, cruel and degrading conditions, being a victim of mistreatment and physical and psychological violence. Deprived of his liberty. Poorly fed. Drinking non-potable water most of the time, prisoners have to carry the water over long distances because tanker trucks hardly ever reach t