Florida Senator Rick Scott wanted to talk to Joe Biden about the case of imprisoned Cuban human rights activist José Daniel Ferrer, a leader of the Cuban political opposition, who was being subjected to beatings and torture while in prison.
Scott called last week to talk to the president but was instructed instead to leave a voice mail. When he tried to get through again on Wednesday, the other end of the line went dead — presumably because the Biden aide hung up on him.
Hanging up on a United States senator is not the way to win friends and influence people in Washington. But the Biden team may be arrogant enough that they don’t care what any Republican thinks about being disrespected.
The @WhiteHouse just hung up on me when I called to talk to someone about the horrific torture & abuse @jdanielferrer is experiencing as a prisoner of the illegitimate communist Cuban regime.
This isn’t just weakness, it’s shameful cowardice. I won’t tolerate it. #SOSCuba
— Rick Scott (@SenRickScott) December 15, 2021
José Daniel Ferrer is a human rights activist and the leader of the Patriotic Union of Cuba (UNPACU), one of the island nation’s most prominent opposition groups against the Communist Cuban regime.
Ferrer had his house arrest privileges revoked by the Communist government in August, forcing him to serve his four-year imprisonment on charges of kidnapping and assault.
When he was sentenced in 2019, the Cuban government accused Ferrer of being a counterrevolutionary funded by the U.S. government but claimed the arrest was not due to his political views.
Ferrer was a leader of the street demonstrations in July that wobbled the Communist government. The activist went on a hunger strike in March, along with about 60 other activists, to protest the lack of human rights in Cuba. The hunger strike ended in April after police lifted the siege on UNPACU headquarters.
Related: An Update on the Push for Democracy in Cuba
He was arrested on October 1 because he was distributing food and medicine from UNPACU headquarters during the pandemic, which hit the import-dependent island very hard.
The Communist authorities have not treated him gently since they took him into custody.
In his many videos on social media. José Daniel Ferrer appears as a robust and determined activist for democracy in Cuba, heading a group named the Patriotic Union of Cuba, or UNPACU. But in a short prison visit on Thursday, more than a month after Mr. Ferrer was detained Oct. 1 by authorities, his family says they saw a broken man, hunched over, having lost half his weight, covered in bruises. He was barely able to speak but told them hastily he has been threatened that he will not leave prison alive.
Senator Scott wanted Joe Biden to say something — anything — to let the Communists in Cuba know that the United States and the world were watching and would not sit quietly by while the Cuban government murdered Ferrer. But Biden is not listening to the voices for freedom in Cuba; he wants to reestablish relations with the Communists because Donald Trump broke them off.
The younger generation of Cuban-Americans, who were born here and never experienced the horrors of Castro’s Cuba, is less likely to support sanctions and travel bans. But they should listen to José Daniel Ferrer, because he is the future of Cuba — not the Communists.
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