Amnesty International Warns of Human Rights Crisis in Cuba
Repression, scarcities, and massive exodus
HAVANA TIMES – The document describes a scenario of growing repression, generalized scarcity, and systematic violation of fundamental rights that affects broad sectors of the population.
The organization’s annual report stressed that the massive exodus of Cubans in the last two years – a population shrinkage estimated at 18% – is one of the most dramatic signs of the crisis. Impelled by the lack of opportunities, political repression, and the ever more impoverished living conditions, hundreds of thousands of Cubans have opted to abandon the nation, generally via irregular and dangerous migration routes.
In the economic sphere, Amnesty International noted that the reforms announced by the government, far from stimulating sustainable growth, imposed new obstacles on all forms of management outside the State. As a consequence, the population faces a reduction in their access to basic goods and services, amid a financial situation marked by inflation, monetary devaluation, and the lack of food and medicine.
According to Amnesty’s annual report, the health sector – the regime’s traditional banner – also demonstrated alarming cracks, as even Cuban officials and leaders have recognized. In other areas, prolonged blackouts – including on four occasions a total breakdown of the National Electro-energy System – negatively affected food preservation, hospital functioning, and educational continuity.
In terms of individual freedoms, 2024 marked a significant setback. The island’s new “Social Communications Law” in effect since October 2024, narrowed still further the arena for free expression. The report mentioned concerns over the continuing harassment of activists, independent journalists, and social media users, who have been the objects of arbitrary detentions, confiscations of electronic equipment and forced exile. In addition, the document referred to the repressive wave against some twenty activists and independent journalists in October 2024, including threats of prosecution and the forced exile of journalist Yuri Valle Roca, released from jail and forced to leave the country.
Amnesty International also highlighted the increase in arbitrary detentions. In 2024 alone, at least 109 people were arrested for participating in protests. The most common charges levied against them were contempt, public disorder, damages, sedition, spreading of enemy propaganda and acts against state security. The report explicitly mentioned the case of Mayelin Rodriguez Prado, sentenced to 15 years in prison for streaming the protests on Facebook.
Other cases noted in the report include that of activist Berta Soler, leader of the Ladies in White, and academic Alina Barbara Lopez, both of whom suffered repeated detentions, some of them accompanied by temporary forced disappearances. Further, the document pointed to the harassment of political prisoners and the lack of medical attention they’re subjected to – for example, Jose Daniel Ferrer, leader of Unpacu, who was held for months in solitary confinement. In 2025, Ferrer was released as part of joint negotiations between Washington, Havana, and the Vatican. [However, Ferrer’s conditional release has just been suspended.]
The structural discrimination faced by women, LGBTI individuals, and the Afro-descendent population was another factor highlighted in the Amnesty International report. The organization noted that femicides aren’t typified as a specific crime in the Cuban laws, although independent organizations reported 55 cases of women killed in 2024 as the result of machismo violence.
The Amnesty International report concluded that patterns of human rights violations persist in Cuba. The lack of access to adequate medical attention in prison, physical violence against those detained, and the systematic harassment of activists and their families comprise an alarming landscape of human rights violations that the government denies.
The Cuban regime systematically rejects all accusations of human rights violations on the island and asserts that these are all part of “a campaign to discredit them” promoted by foreign interests. The authorities sustain that respect for the fundamental rights is guaranteed in Cuba, with priority given to the areas of Health, Education and Social Security. They accuse the independent media and international organizations of distorting the country’s reality for political ends.
First published in Spanish by El Toque and translated and posted in English by Havana Times.