While diplomats of the Cuban regime were staging a repudiation act against activists denouncing human rights violations at the United Nations headquarters this Monday, José Daniel Ferrer released a video recorded in a prison in Holguín showing a prisoner with numerous skin injuries, attributed to bedbug bites, who speaks out about the lack of medication to treat them.
The opposition leader posted the recording on Facebook and explained that the images were taken approximately a month ago at the Holguín Temporary Prison, where, he claimed, inmates face serious sanitation issues and lack adequate medical attention.
"The terrible drama faced by political and common prisoners in Cuba. This video was taken a month ago in the Holguín Temporary Prison. There are thousands of prisoners in Cuba in similar conditions," Ferrer wrote alongside the images.
The recording shows a man displaying various parts of his body, covered in marks and lesions that those present attribute to bedbugs. While the camera captures the condition of his skin, another person insists that the images must be made public.
“Look at the conditions in which the prisoners are here, look at the bedbug, everything is caused by the bedbug, gentlemen. So the world can see,” can be heard at the beginning of the video.
"Look at the conditions the prisoners are in here. Look at the bedbug bites, that's from the bedbugs, gentlemen. Look over here, there’s no medicine, there’s nothing," he states.
At another moment, the person holding the camera asks the inmate to show the affected areas of his body to document the situation.
“Look, gentlemen, so that you can see, so that the world can see the conditions in which the prisoners are,” he repeats.
One of the most concerning testimonies arises when the inmate himself reports that the requested medications never arrive, despite the promises they receive daily.
“Tell them that we are not being given the medications, that every day they are deceiving us,” the man expresses, who claims that they are constantly told to wait until the next day, without ever receiving the medicines.
After the first few seconds, Ferrer intervenes with a broader denunciation of the state of Cuban prisons.
"In the prisons of the Castro-communist tyranny, thousands of common inmates and hundreds of political prisoners have to deal with infestations of bedbugs, mosquitoes, and rodents," states the opposition figure.
Ferrer states that inmates also face hunger, malnutrition, violence, physical and psychological torture, as well as confinement in isolation cells.
It also warns of the risk of contracting tuberculosis, scabies, and other infectious diseases, as well as the consequences of consuming contaminated water.
"Most prisons lack potable water, and in many cases, water is very scarce. The poor hygiene affects the majority of inmates. The unsanitary conditions threaten their health," he states.
The opposition member also mentions parasitic diseases such as amoebiasis and giardiasis, along with diarrheal outbreaks that he attributes to poor sanitary conditions.
"In short, the prisons of the Castro-communist regime are a true hell on earth," concludes Ferrer.
The publication coincides with a day of verbal confrontations at the United Nations, where representatives of the Cuban regime protested against an event organized by the U.S. Permanent Mission to address the human rights situation on the Island.
This Monday, Cuban diplomats confronted activists during the event "Cuba Libre: The oppression that Havana hides", held at the international organization's headquarters in New York.
According to Ferrer himself, who was participating in the event, representatives of the regime interrupted those presenting reports on political prisoners, forced labor, and corruption in Cuba with shouts of "terrorists" and "get out of the UN."
In the event, artist and activist Luis Manuel Otero Alcántara also participated, released from prison and forced to leave Cuba on July 18, 2026, after five years of incarceration, along with Orlando Gutiérrez Boronat, from the Cuban Democratic Directorate.
The episode occurred after Cuba's Permanent Representative to the United Nations, Ernesto Soberón Guzmán, publicly questioned the celebration of the meeting, which he described as a political maneuver against his government.
"Cuba will not allow itself to be intimidated, blackmailed, or silenced," declared the diplomat, who asserted that the event was a response to a campaign by Washington against Cuban sovereignty.
The American ambassador to the United Nations, Mike Waltz, responded to Soberón's questions and defended the involvement of former political prisoners and experts who document the repressive practices of the regime.
In this context, the dissemination of images from Holguín adds a concrete dimension to the claims being discussed in New York: the situation of incarcerated individuals who report living amidst infestations and without timely access to medications.
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