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The Cuban opposition leader José Daniel Ferrer appeared this Tuesday before the Committee on Foreign Affairs and the Subcommittee on Human Rights of the European Parliament in Brussels and made his most direct plea to date: that the United States take action in Cuba "as soon as possible, something like what happened in Venezuela on January 3," referring to the capture of Nicolás Maduro by U.S. special forces.
Ferrer was explicit in justifying that request: "We are supporters of respect for international law, but when it comes to choosing between respecting international law and the life of our people, we choose the life of our people."
The leader of the Cuban Patriotic Union (UNPACU) referred to Operation Absolute Resolution on January 3, 2026, in which U.S. special forces captured Maduro and his wife Cilia Flores at Fort Tiuna in Caracas and transported them to New York to face drug trafficking charges.
In that operation, 77 people died, including 32 Cuban intelligence agents whose presence in Venezuela was confirmed by the regime in Havana itself.
Before the MEPs, Ferrer denounced that Cuba is experiencing the worst crisis in its modern history and described the regime's prisons as "hell" where opponents are sent "with the intention of breaking them physically and mentally."
He cited the case of Alexander Díaz Rodríguez, a political prisoner from 11J who was released on April 12 after losing 44 kilograms during his imprisonment —he went from 81 to 37 kilos— suffering from thyroid cancer, hepatitis B, and severe malnutrition.
"He emerged from a communist prison like the prisoners who survived the concentration camps of Nazi Germany: skin over bone," he stated.
Ferrer denounced that since 2020, at least a dozen political prisoners have died in Cuban prisons, victims of severe malnutrition, tuberculosis, and medical negligence, and that the political police have added sexual assaults by common prisoners against young dissidents.
Regarding the Political Dialogue and Cooperation Agreement that the European Union maintains with Havana, Ferrer was categorical: "It is aspirin for a terrible cancer."
He demanded that the EU suspend it and impose on Cuba the same sanctions that it has already applied to Venezuela and Nicaragua, whose regimes he described as "students" of Castroism.
The opposition member also pointed out that the Cuban regime is allied with Russia, China, North Korea, Belarus, and Iran, and that without the influence of Havana, Venezuela would not have fallen under Hugo Chávez, nor Nicaragua under Daniel Ortega.
Ferrer reported that in his meetings with about 30 MEPs, only one expressed support for the cooperation agreement with the Cuban regime.
In the same session, Edgar Stuardo Ralón Orellana, president of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR), participated remotely, warning that the situation in Cuba "exhibits a persistent and aggravated structural character" and that "the single-party model of the communist regime has failed."
The appearance is part of a European tour that Ferrer began on May 2 with his arrival in Madrid.
The opponent, exiled from Cuba in October 2025 along with his family after a hunger strike in Mar Verde prison to denounce torture, presented to the MEPs the "Cuba Liberation Agreement," an alliance of over a hundred pro-democracy organizations formed two months ago.
The European Union began a review process of the agreement with Cuba in April, although it was not made public, following a parliamentary vote of 331 in favor of adopting a tougher stance towards Havana.
Ferrer concluded his speech with a phrase that summarized the message of his entire appearance: "The only claws that the people of Cuba want to be lifted off the country are the claws of the Communist Party."
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