Within the opposition to the Cuban government is characterized by its willingness, through the creation of sufficient "social mass" that "through non-violent struggle forces the government to sit at the negotiating table”, to achieve an "equal to equal and serious" dialogue in order to achieve the so-called "national reconciliation" and avoid any kind of "fraticide".

[30] José Daniel Ferrer's himself and his relatives, including his wife and children, as well as other members of the Cuban Patriotic Union have received the support of Amnesty International and the World Organization Against Torture when arrested, robbed of their homes and retained in an unknown location after police detentions.

[35][36][37][38][39][40][41][42][43][excessive citations] Identified as a relevant personality of Cuban dissidence, having unified several organizations inside the Patriotic Union of Cuba (UNPACU), and identified this as the most active dissident organization throughout the island, both José Daniel Ferrer and the activists of the Patriotic Union of Cuba (UNPACU) have been threatened with imprisonment if they do not cease their political activism.

[44][45][46][47][48][49][50] Ferrer was detained during the subsequent Black Spring crackdown of March 2003 and sentenced to 25 years' imprisonment for being one of the main promoters of the Varela Project.

[51] US President Barack Obama called for Ferrer's release in 2009, urging the Cuban government to allow him to "fully participate in a democratic future in Cuba.

[56] Ferrer was detained again in April 2012 for "public disorder", and again for two days in August 2012 for his work with Unión Patriótica de Cuba (UNPACU).

Amnesty International described the arrests as part of "a pattern of harassment by the Cuban authorities against UNPACU members and other political dissidents.

[71] Spanish and Latin American media claim him to be "the visible head of the dissident movement in the interior of the island since the death of Oswaldo Payá, in July 2012”.

[3][4][5][6][7] Ferrer's wife, Cantillo Belkis Ramirez, is a member of the Ladies in White, a group of wives of political prisoners protesting every Sunday for their release.