Propose political debate between Díaz-Canel and Ferrer

The Platform Council for the Democratic Transition in Cuba (CTDC) on Wednesday requested a televised and public debate among the president Miguel Díaz-Canel, and the leader of the Patriotic Union of Cuba, José Daniel Ferrer, returned to jail since last week, after the revocation of the probation that was granted in January.

«We had had an important debate on the Council in relation to raising and putting the discussion on a strictly political level,» said Martí News, Manuel Cuesta Morúa, vice president of the CTDC.

«The government is still forcing us to a discussion in the human rights and non -political level, at a time when its legitimation decreases and increases the support of citizen actors and sectors to civil society proposals,» he said.

The organization considered that this exercise «on equal terms may be the beginning of a peaceful and orderly transition towards an inclusive country, with guaranteed rights for all.»

It is an «accountability to a citizenship that demands alternatives,» said the opposition agreement in a statement.

The text criticized that «instead of opening to dialogue with those who propose peaceful exits to the deep systemic crisis that the country suffers, the Cuban government insists on responding with repression and violence.»

In this regard, he condemned the recent imprisonment of Ferrer and Félix Navarro, both historical opponents and leaders of the CTDC, after the Supreme Court considered that they «breached» the conditions imposed.

Cuesta Morúa highlighted Ferrer’s leadership position in Santiago de Cuba, «where the leadership was unable to sustain the basic needs and José Daniel appeared with a simple proposal for humanitarian support and health support for the poor, helpless, abandoned and marginalized.»

Ferrer and Navarro «represent a citizenship that does not ask for privileges, but rights: to dissent without punishment, participate without persecution and deliberate without fear,» they said.

The Council, composed of more than 30 groups of the internal and external opposition, described as «an act of despair and fear» the criminalization of the regime of the humanitarian work of the opponents «in a country where hunger, exodus and economic collapse coexist with unfulfilled promises.»

He also cataloged «incomprehensible» the fact that the regime «is willing to sit with international figures accused of war crimes, such as (Russian president) Vladimir Putin, while systematically denies dialogue with his own citizenship, the only legitimate source of power in any state.»

«We believe that it is the time when the authorities must, instead of repressing, confront with those who have a vision, a perspective, a different approach; other proposals to get ahead in Cuba and that this could mark a new opportunity for political maturity for the Cuban authorities. Unfortunately,» said the activist.

The proposal is unlikely to be carried out because the Cuban government, through its means of dissemination, has described José Daniel Ferrer as “a wage agent of the United States, with a long career of actions of provocation against public order and legality”, and protagonist of the slander of the United States against Cuba.

Throughout the history since 1959, the Cuban opposition has presented initiatives that seek to reform the country’s political and economic system. The government has responded with an intolerant position, underlining the preservation of the socialist model as unquestionable and, many times, imprisoning the main promoters of the propositions.

Ferrer, 54, loads with a penalty of four years and six months for crimes of illegal deprivation of liberty and injuries. Navarro, 72, celebrates a nine -year sanction for public disorder, contempt and attack.

Both are part of the 75 opponents arrested and convicted in the one known as 2003 black spring.