Cuban activist Darsi Ferrer, out of jail, describes police brutality

Dr. Darsi Ferrer and family

George at The Real Cuba today spoke with Cuban human rights activist Darsi Ferrer, three days after he and his wife were arrested at their home in Havana.

Here is George's report:

July 12 - I was able to reach Dr. Darsi Ferrer this afternoon. He was in Pinar del Rio because a younger brother, who has been in jail for 3 years for political reasons, had a visit scheduled for today. It was the first time in the last 3 years that Darsi has been able to see him.

He told me about the brutal aggression that he and his wife suffered on Thursday.

Around noon on that day, about 8 thugs from State Security went to his house and took him and his wife to a police station.

After being there for about eight hours, they were told that they could leave.

They refused to leave the station because they said that on previous occasions they have been arrested for a few hours and when they go back home they find that the police has stolen many of their possessions.

They wanted to have someone of authority to tell them why were they arrested and what were the charges, since all they wanted to do was to take a walk on the Malecon with several friends.

Darsi said that he lied on the floor and grabbed the leg of one of the desks and refused to move. A group of about five thugs jumped on him and started kicking and beating him.

One of them grabbed Darsi by the neck and almost strangled him. He only let go when Darsi's wife jumped on his back and began to yell hysterically to let him go.

After they finally left the police station, they went directly to a hospital where a doctor certified the injuries that both of them had received from "these animals," as Darsi described them.

When they finally got home, past midnight, they found that the police had broken the front door of their house and also, believe it or not, had stolen two of their windows!

They also stole some iron bars that he was planning to use to make his front home more secure.

Darsi plans to return to Havana tonight.

He has photos of everything and has made several copies to make sure that he can get them to me, even if the police confiscate the ones he has.

When I get them, I will publish them and send them to every news outlet, national and international that I can think of.

The world needs to know the brutality of the Stalinist regime in Cuba.

They can continue to ignore it, but they will not be able to say later that they didn't know what was going on.

His release, while welcome, is not really a surprise. Under Raúl Castro, the practice has been less to throw dissidents in jail to serve long prison sentences and more such "catch, threaten and release," as experienced by Ferrer and his wife. They get to go home, but the repression is just the same — and as George wrote, the world isn't wiser for it. Chalk up another "victory" for the dictatorship.

But what the dictatorship doesn't understand that it, not Ferrer, is the real loser. Men of courage and action like Darsi Ferrer are not easily intimidated by the thugs of the Castro dictatorship, no matter how many times they break into their homes and carry them off into the night.

You may not read this story in the MSM — but hey, did you hear the New York Philarhamonic has been invited to playin Cuba?!?!?!?! — but rest assured that outlets like The Real Cuba and this blog will continue to tell the stories of Darsi Ferrer and other Cubans shouting from the mountaintops about the horrors of today's Cuba.