As Cubans endure a dire economic crisis that affects their rights, the government continues to suppress and punish virtually all forms of dissent and public criticism.
Hundreds of critics and protesters remain arbitrarily detained, including those who took to the streets in July 2021. Protests have continued in 2023, triggered by power outages, shortages of supplies, and deteriorating living conditions. Cubans continue to flee the country in unprecedented numbers.
The United States continued its failed isolationist policy toward Cuba, including a decades-long trade embargo.
Arbitrary Detention and Prosecution
The government continued to use arbitrary detention to harass and intimidate critics, independence activists, and political opponents.
Two years after the largest protests since Cuba’s revolution in July 2021, human rights groups say more than 700 people remain incarcerated for their involvement in the protests, including more than 70 women. Many are regularly held incommunicado and some have been subjected to ill-treatment and, in some cases, torture.
The government said more than 380 people, including several children, were serving sentences. Some were tried in military tribunals in violation of international law. Others were tried in regular courts on “sedition” charges for stone-throwing and other violent acts and received disproportionate prison sentences of up to 25 years. Many others received summary trials on vague charges such as “disturbing public order” and “insulting.”
Prosecutors have criminalized social media criticism of the government and peaceful protests, which are legitimate exercises of freedom of expression and association. Prosecutors and judges used unreliable or uncorroborated evidence.
Migration
Between January 2022 and October 2023, U.S. Border Patrol apprehended more than 420,000 Cubans, potentially including multiple encounters with the same individuals, many traveling north via Nicaragua, which in late 2021 waived visa requirements for Cubans.
Additionally, between October 2022 and July 2023, the U.S. Coast Guard intercepted more than 6,800 Cubans at sea.
Many Cubans have also fled to countries outside the United States, including in Latin America and Europe.
Travel Restrictions
Since the Cuban government implemented reforms in 2013, many people who were previously denied travel to Cuba, including human rights activists and bloggers, have been able to do so. But the reforms also give the government broad discretion to restrict travel for reasons of “national defense and national security” and “other public interests.”
The government continued to bar critics from boarding planes to visit or return to their countries, in violation of international human rights law.
Economic and social rights
Cuba’s economic crisis is having a serious impact on the enjoyment of economic and social rights of its people. People are enduring power outages and severe shortages of food, medicine and other basic goods. In February, authorities said that Cubans must prepare for three hours of blackouts every day for the next few months.
The head of Cuba’s pharmaceutical industry in May condemned the U.S. embargo, saying authorities were denying Cubans the medicines they needed.
Cuban authorities also reported in May that life expectancy decreased from 78.07 years between 2014 and 2016 to 77.7 years between 2018 and 2020, while infant mortality increased from 4.9 deaths per 100,000 live births in 2020 to 7.5 in 2022.
Political prisoners
According to the Madrid-based nongovernmental organization Prisoners Defenders, as of November there were more than 1,000 people held in Cuba who met the definition of political prisoners, including 34 adolescents and other children.
Cubans who criticize the government face criminal prosecution and are not guaranteed due process, including the right to a fair and public hearing by competent, independent and impartial courts that are subordinate to the executive branch.
José Daniel Ferrer, leader of the main opposition party, the Patriotic Union of Cuba, remains in prison at the time of writing. In April 2020, a court in Santiago de Cuba sentenced Ferrer to four and a half years of “restrictions of liberty” for alleged “assault” in a case that the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention deemed arbitrary. On July 11, 2021, Ferrer was detained by police while on his way to a demonstration. In August 2021, a court in Santiago de Cuba ruled that Ferrer had not complied with the “restrictions of liberty” and sent him to Mar Verde Prison. According to his relatives, Ferrer has been held in incommunicado detention for a long period of time and has health problems.
In June 2022, a Havana court convicted activists Luis Manuel Otero Alcántara and Michael Castillo Pérez, who appeared in the 2021 music video “Homeland and Life,” which repurposed the government’s old slogan, “Homeland or Death,” to criticize the repression. The two were charged with violating freedom of expression, including posting memes of President Díaz-Canel. Otero Alcántara and Castillo Pérez were sentenced to five and nine years in prison, respectively.
Prison conditions
Prisons are often overcrowded, and detainees lack effective complaint mechanisms to seek redress for their ill-treatment.
The government continues to deny Cuban and international human rights organizations access to the prison, and in June 2022 the UN Committee against Torture expressed concern about “allegations of systematic ill-treatment and torture of prisoners.”
Freedom of Expression
The government controls virtually all media in Cuba, restricting outside access to information and regularly censoring critics and independent journalists.
Expanded access to the internet has enabled activists to communicate, report abuses, and organize protests. Some journalists and bloggers publish articles, videos, and news on websites and social media platforms such as X (formerly known as Twitter) and Facebook.
Authorities routinely block access to many news websites in Cuba and have repeatedly imposed targeted and sometimes widespread restrictions on critics’ access to mobile phone data.
In May 2023, parliament passed a social communications law that severely restricts the operation of independent media and contains overly broad prohibitions that can be used to censor criticism, such as a ban on “promoting ongoing communicative attacks against the state.”
Workers’ rights
Cuba has ratified the International Labor Organization’s standards on freedom of association and collective bargaining, but its 2014 labor law amendments violate these standards.
In an April 2023 report, the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights found a “systematic pattern of violations of workers’ rights,” including limited occupational safety and health protection measures and a lack of freedom of expression in the workplace.
Thousands of Cuban medical workers deployed abroad provide a valuable service, but the government imposes regulations on them that violate their fundamental rights, including privacy, liberty, movement, freedom of expression and association.
Attacks on human rights defenders
The government does not recognize human rights monitoring as a legitimate activity and denies legal status to human rights groups in Cuba. Authorities harass, assault, and imprison human rights defenders who document human rights violations.
In June 2023, the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights concluded that the Cuban government was responsible for the 2012 deaths of democratic activists Oswaldo Paya and Harold Cepero.
Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity
The 2019 constitution explicitly prohibits discrimination based on sexual orientation or gender identity, but many lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) people suffer violence and discrimination, especially in Cuba’s interior.
Prisoners Defenders reported in July that more than 100 transgender women imprisoned in Cuba are being held alongside men, in violation of international human rights standards.
In September 2022, a new family law law that includes a gender-neutral definition of marriage was approved in a national referendum, making same-sex marriage legal.
Rights of people with disabilities
Cuba has not aligned its laws with the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities and has not implemented policies that address the rights of persons with disabilities in the areas of accessibility, access to justice, legal capacity, education, independent living, and employment. Children with disabilities are forced to attend specifically segregated schools.
Women and Girls’ Rights
Abortion was decriminalized in Cuba in 1965. Abortion is available free of charge in public hospitals.
In July 2023, lawmakers reported that pregnancies are on the rise among women and girls under the age of 19. About 20% of pregnancies in the country are among women and girls between the ages of 12 and 19, and in some parts of Cuba, early pregnancy is more likely among black, rural and low-income youth, the lawmakers said.
Yo Si Te Creo, an NGO that supports victims of gender-based violence, reported 54 “femicide” cases in Cuba between January and July. The government does not release official figures for such gender-based killings.
Key international actors
For decades, the international community has failed to secure sustained progress on human rights in Cuba.
The U.S. embargo gives the Cuban government an excuse for its problems, a pretext for abuses, and sympathy from governments that would otherwise condemn its repressive practices.
In November 2023, the UN General Assembly passed a resolution overwhelmingly condemning the embargo, with 187 countries voting in favor, the United States and Israel voting against, and Ukraine abstaining.
The European Union continued its policy of “critical engagement” with Cuba. In May 2023, Josep Borrell, the EU’s High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, visited Cuba. He condemned the US embargo and noted that the EU and Cuba have “differences of opinion” on the “concept of human rights,” but added that the EU “has neither the capacity nor the will to force change on Cuba.” In November, Eamon Gilmore, the EU’s Special Representative for Human Rights, visited Cuba and met with the government and civil society organizations, calling for the release of those arbitrarily detained.
In July, the European Parliament passed a resolution condemning the systematic human rights violations and mistreatment of protesters in Cuba.
In May, the US Secretary of State again designated Cuba a state sponsor of terrorism, a policy first imposed by former US President Donald Trump in 2021. President Joe Biden has repeatedly condemned abuses against protesters and has imposed targeted sanctions on several officials believed to be involved in the crackdown.
The Biden administration in January announced a “humanitarian parole” program for Cubans who have financial backers in the U.S. In July, the Department of Homeland Security said 38,000 Cubans had been vetted and approved to travel in the first half of this year.
Despite its dismal human rights record, Cuba was elected to the UN Human Rights Council for the sixth time in October.