José Daniel Ferrer, leader of the Patriotic Union of Cuba (UNPACU), starred in one of the most emotional moments of the Liberation Day Rally held in Miami to commemorate the fifth anniversary of the protests on July 11, 2021, with a message that combined denunciation, hope, and an urgent call for ongoing action.
The event, organized by Cuban Freedom March under the leadership of Alián Collazo, began with a march from La Casa del Preso on Calle Ocho in Little Havana and culminated in a main rally at Domino Park that lasted into the night.
From the stage, Ferrer recalled the historic significance of those days in 2021, when Cubans took to the streets in over forty cities, from San Antonio to the eastern part of the country, and warned that the repression has not abated: "Five years have passed since those great and glorious protests. And hundreds of political prisoners endure violence, torture, extreme hunger, malnutrition, tuberculosis, scabies, and many other dangerous diseases."
The opposition figure emphasized that, despite 67 years of dictatorship, the resistance within the island has not waned: "The people do not surrender. They continue banging their pots, blocking the streets, raising barricades, lighting bonfires at night, illuminating the blackout nights, and painting graffiti against tyranny."
Ferrer was emphatic in rejecting the idea that the struggle is limited to symbolic dates: "The struggle is not just about one day, July 11; it’s not about ten days a year, nor even a hundred. The struggle is about every day. It’s a matter of energy, strategy, sacrifice, intelligence, knowledge, discipline, and above all, a lot of love for Cuba."
The opposition leader, forcibly exiled from Cuba in October 2025 after more than four years of imprisonment in the Mar Verde prison in Santiago de Cuba, also emphasized the political support that the Cuban cause has in Washington: "Today, five years after July 11, undoubtedly, we are stronger than ever and closer to freedom because we have friends in the United States. We have President Donald Trump, we have Marco Rubio, we have Cuban-American congressmen, we have senators like Rick Scott and Ashley Moody."
The fifth anniversary of the 11J arrives with figures that illustrate the scale of the repression: in May 2026, 1,281 people were recorded as being imprisoned for political reasons in Cuba, of which at least 338 were serving sentences directly related to the protests of 2021.
The regime released 2,010 prisoners on April 2, 2026, as a supposed humanitarian gesture, but explicitly excluded those convicted of offenses against authority, a category that includes most of the prisoners from 11J. The sentence of Luis Manuel Otero Alcántara, leader of the San Isidro Movement, was due to expire on July 9 without the People's Supreme Court granting him any reduction.
The event in Little Havana also included an art exhibition at the Tower Theater, featuring performances, poetry, and the screening of the documentary "Cuba y La Noche," along with the participation of singer Aymée Nuviola.
Ferrer concluded his speech with a promise that encapsulated the spirit of the event: “Today we are closer to the moment when tyranny will fall, and we will have a Free Cuba for all and for the good of all, as envisioned by Martí.”
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