The Patriotic Union of Cuba (UNPACU) is a non-violent opposition organization in Cuba that brings together Cuban dissidents. It was established on August 24, 2011, by José Daniel Ferrer García after he was released from prison in March 2011 and refused to leave the country.
Despite having started with just twelve people, today UNPACU has over ten thousand affiliated activists and 122 cells. By 2017, they reported that 53 of their activists were imprisoned in Cuba for political reasons.
UNPACU has representation in both the United States and the European Union
On the organization's website, it can be read, "UNPACU's activism is based on nonviolent resistance and disobedience, the same principle that underpinned the so-called 'color revolutions,' the axes of action of which were articulated in their time by Gene Sharp."
Recognized by Amnesty International since its inception, this movement has denounced the harassment and intimidation and the detentions that its members have suffered at the hands of the Cuban authorities.
As part of its growth and consolidation, UNPACU absorbed in 2013 the peaceful dissident organization FANTU, led by the renowned dissident and journalist Guillermo Fariñas.
Among its objectives, the organization actively denounces the lack of civil liberties as well as the precarious economic situation in the island.
In January 2012, one of its members, the Cuban dissident Wilman Villar Mendoza, 31 years old, died at the Juan Bruno Zayas Hospital in Santiago de Cuba after a 50-day hunger strike he had begun in prison following his conviction for contempt, resulting in a four-year prison sentence for participating in a peaceful demonstration.
