José Daniel Ferrer and Félix Navarro, heroes of the homeland

By: Pedro Corzo - 21/10/2024

Guest columnist.
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The prison system of the Castro-Chavez regimes is particularly cruel and merciless. They establish such miserable conditions of survival that people survive thanks to unbending moral values ​​and the unbreakable brotherhood that death creates in perpetual lurking.

Food is precarious, medical care is non-existent and, even worse, selective. The sick are treated based on instructions given by an official who is governed by political patterns, not by the health of the patient. Overcrowding is the rule, never the exception, and family visits are subject to the whims of a henchman, who arbitrarily suspends them, in addition to the innumerable difficulties for the family to provide goods or visit the inmate.

In these countries there are prisons that epitomise the extreme evil of the regime, without the rest of the prisons being five-star hotels.

In Nicaragua, the Chipote fortress is by far the most frightening; in Venezuela this miserable honor corresponds to the Helicoide; Bolivia is not far behind with colonial prisons and in Cuba there are many prison centers that can be considered antechambers of hell, in addition to being perhaps the country with the most prisons and political prisoners in the world, in relation to its size and population.

In the prisons of each and every one of these countries there are prisoners who symbolize the cause that brought them to prison. People of absolute dedication and unfading courage, always ready for extreme sacrifice, like Armando Sosa Fortuny, who died in prison after having served 43 years in two stages, a death that looms over other patriots like Ernesto Borges, who served 26 years in prison last July, and Miguel Diaz Bouza, who completed his 30-year prison sentence on October 15 and remains behind bars.

In these 65 years of Castroism, more than half a million prisoners have passed through Cuban prisons, who have been behind bars for between one day and 30 years. In addition, many prisons have been distinguished as the most cruel and sadistic, among them the Castillo de San Severino, La Cabaña, Puerto Boniato, Guanajay, the National Prison on the Isle of Pines, Siete y Medio and Kilo Siete, while some prisoners have been examples of resistance and capacity for sacrifice, among others, Cari Roque, Pedro Luis Boitel, Mario Chanes de Armas, Roberto Martin Pérez and Amado Rodríguez.

There are currently at least two political prisoners, among a host of men and women in prison, who in my opinion symbolize everyone's commitment to freedom and civil rights.

José Daniel Ferrer and Félix Navarro, two opponents of totalitarianism who were imprisoned during the Cuban Black Spring in 2003 and released in 2011, refused to go into exile, despite being aware that they would return to prison because they would never give up on their efforts to free Cuba and Cubans from totalitarianism.

Ferrer, who was last arrested on July 11, 2021, tried to take part in the civic protests that took place across the island, and has since suffered continued ill-treatment by the regime. His family denounces the abuses he suffers, in particular the extreme isolation to which he is systematically subjected as part of Raúl Castro and Miguel Diaz-Canel's plan to "bury him alive." Again, in recent days, his wife was prevented from visiting him with their children.

Félix Navarro is in the gloomy prison of Agüica, in the province of Matanzas, a prison that has had a very bad reputation since the 1970s, due to the abusive henchmen and the diabolical conditions of its facilities.

Navarro, leader of the Pedro Luis Boitel Party for Democracy and vice president of the Council for Democratic Transition in Cuba, was also sentenced to nine years in prison for the 2021 national protests. Since last June, he has not received medication for the chronic illness he suffers from, a common practice of Castro's henchmen working in the prison system.

Navarro and Ferrer should not be forgotten. To paraphrase a song by Albita Rodríguez: “They have the honor of having been born in Cuba and loving the freedom crushed by the Castros and their hitmen.”

«The opinions published herein are the sole responsibility of its author».