The Patriotic Union of Cuba (UNPACU) is a non-violent opposition organization in Cuba that brings together Cuban dissidents. 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 being founded by twelve people, UNPACU now has over ten thousand affiliated activists and 122 cells. By 2017, they estimated that there were 53 of their activists 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 non-violent resistance and disobedience, the same principle that underpinned the so-called 'color' revolutions, whose action strategies were articulated in their time by Gene Sharp.”
Recognized by Amnesty International since its inception, this movement has denounced the harassment, intimidation, and detentions suffered by its members 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 shortcomings of civil liberties as well as the economic precariousness experienced on the island.
In January 2012, one of its members, the Cuban dissident Wilman Villar Mendoza, 31 years old, died in the Juan Bruno Zayas hospital in Santiago de Cuba after a 50-day hunger strike he had begun in prison following a sentence of four years in jail for having participated in a peaceful demonstration.
