The Patriotic Union of Cuba (UNPACU) is a non-violent opposition organization that brings together Cuban dissenters. It was founded 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 individuals, UNPACU now has over ten thousand affiliated activists and 122 cells. By 2017, they reported that the number of their activists imprisoned in Cuba for political reasons was 53.
UNPACU is represented both in the United States and in the European Union
On the organization's website, it reads, "UNPACU's activism is based on non-violent resistance and disobedience, the same principle on which the so-called 'color revolutions' were founded, the action frameworks of which were outlined in their day by Gene Sharp."
Recognized by Amnesty International since its inception, this movement has denounced the harassment, intimidation, and 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 well-known dissident journalist Guillermo Fariñas.
Among its objectives, the organization actively denounces the shortcomings of civil liberties as well as the precarious economic situation experienced on 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 initiated in prison following his conviction for contempt, which resulted in a four-year prison sentence for participating in a peaceful demonstration.
