The Cuban opposition leader José Daniel Ferrer García condemned this Sunday the devastating physical state in which Alexander Díaz Rodríguez, a political prisoner sentenced for participating in the protests of July 11, 2021 in Cárdenas, Matanzas, was released, and compared him to prisoners from Nazi concentration camps.
Ferrer, leader of the Cuban Patriotic Union (UNPACU) and an exile in Miami since October 2025, published a video on Facebook where he displayed photographs of Díaz Rodríguez just released from prison and warned that his life "is in constant danger."
"I just received a very striking and moving photograph. It is an undeniable evidence of what the penitentiary system of the Castro-communist tyranny and that criminal system does to political prisoners in Cuba," Ferrer stated in the video.
Díaz Rodríguez was arrested during the demonstrations on 11J and sentenced for the crimes of "sedition" and "disrespect".
During his imprisonment, he developed thyroid cancer and suffered extreme weight loss, dropping from approximately 80-90 kilograms to just 52-55 kilograms, according to reports from the organizations Justicia 11J and Cubalex.
Ferrer specified that it was the director of Prisoners Defenders, Javier Larrondo, who informed him of the diagnosis: "He has throat thyroid cancer and has never received proper medical attention."
"This man needs medicine, he needs vitamins, he needs food, he has nothing," denounced Ferrer, who announced that he will send him food and medicine immediately.
The opponent was emphatic in rejecting any interpretation of the case as a gesture of clemency from the regime: "This man has been released because he fully served his sentence; no one should tell me now that he was pardoned and that it was an act of benevolence from the infamous and criminal tyranny."
Ferrer described Cuban prisons as "Nazi-style concentration camps in the 21st century, in 2026", and emphasized that the situation of Díaz Rodríguez is not an isolated case.
In the same video, he mentioned the critical situation of other political prisoners: "Roilán Álvarez is in critical health condition, in a very hostile environment, like Luis Manuel, and like Félix Navarro, who was recently brutally beaten."
The case arises weeks after the regime announced a pardon that affected more than 2,010 inmates on April 3rd, a measure that Ferrer and other opponents described as a propaganda gesture that excludes the majority of documented political prisoners.
According to Prisoners Defenders, Cuba had 1,214 political prisoners as of February 2026, with 28 new cases recorded in just that month, demonstrating that repression has not decreased despite the partial releases announced by Havana.
"Let someone defend this type of regime, let someone defend this tyranny; whoever defends that infamous and criminal tyranny should feel ashamed," Ferrer concluded in his denunciation.
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