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The Cuban opposition leader José Daniel Ferrer met this week with the U.S. Ambassador to Spain, Benjamín León Jr., in what the diplomatic mission described as a discussion about “the urgent need for freedom in Cuba”.
The U.S. Embassy in Madrid confirmed the meeting this Saturday through its official account on X, where it also reported that Javier Larrondo Calafat, president of Prisoner Defenders, and Guillermo Ponce, president of the Association of Cuban Doctors in Spain, participated.
The embassy described the three participants as "brave pro-democracy leaders" and highlighted Ferrer as a "exiled leader and former political prisoner."
The meeting takes place as part of a extensive European tour by Ferrer that began on May 2 in Madrid, organized together with Prisoner Defenders, and will span more than ten countries over the course of about a month.
The central goal of the tour is to promote the "Cuba Liberation Agreement," a democratic transition plan signed in Miami on March 2 by over 30 organizations of the Cuban exile community.
This Saturday, the U.S. Embassy to the Vatican also met with Ferrer during his European tour, highlighting U.S. diplomatic support for his agenda.
During the tour, Ferrer has held high-level meetings with Spanish political leaders. Last Wednesday, Santiago Abascal received Ferrer in Madrid and expressed Vox's "firm support" to work towards ending the Cuban regime. Ferrer also met with the leader of the Popular Party, Alberto Núñez Feijóo, and appeared before the European Parliament.
Ambassador León is a first-generation Cuban exile: he was born in Cuba in 1944, emigrated to the United States in 1961 at just 16 years old, and was nominated by Donald Trump for the position. He was confirmed by the Senate on December 19, 2025, and took the oath of office before Secretary of State Marco Rubio on February 10, 2026.
Ferrer, leader of the Patriotic Union of Cuba (UNPACU), left Cuba on October 13, 2025 heading to Miami with his wife Nelva Ortega and their three children, exiled from Mar Verde prison in Santiago de Cuba after years of incarceration.
Prisoner Defenders, the organization led by Larrondo based in Spain, registered 1,214 political prisoners in Cuba at the end of February 2026, a figure described as a historic record, and has counted 1,981 individuals detained for political reasons since the protests of July 11, 2021.
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