The opposition Cuban Commission on Human Rights and National Reconciliation on Thursday denounced the fact that former political prisoner José Daniel Ferrer remains in jail without any charges being filed against him more than two weeks after being arrested.
"He continues to be detained, allegedly under 'provisional imprisonment' in the political secret police station in Santiago de Cuba, where he has remained interned, under cruel and subhuman conditions, since April 2," commission spokesman Elizardo Sánchez said in a communique.
Ferrer, who was among the "Group of 75" dissidents sentenced to lengthy prison terms in the spring of 2003, heads the illegal Patriotic Union of Cuba and was arrested in Santiago along with other opposition members.
The commission said that as of early Thursday the formal charges against Ferrer had not been made known and he had not been assigned a defense attorney.
According to the text of the communique, the opposition figure is in "solitary confinement" and is being subjected to "a particular form of biological torture" given that he is being exposed to an "enormous plague of mosquitoes."
The commission also emphasized the "provisional imprisonment" of Bismarck Mustelier, whom it said is also a member of the Patriotic Union and "has been held in the high-security Aguadores prison" in Santiago.
As a member of the Group of 75, Ferrer was released on parole in March 2011 and was among the 12 opposition members of the Group who refused to travel to Spain as a condition of their release from prison.
