The United States announced unprecedented sanctions against Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel on Friday, July 11, just four years after historic anti-government protests shook the island nation. This was reported by UNN with reference to Le Monde.
Details
The State Department imposed visa restrictions on Miguel Díaz-Canel, who was sanctioned "for his role in the regime's brutality against the people," Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced on his X account.
Rubio clarified that other "key figures of the Cuban regime," such as Defense Minister Álvaro López Miera and Interior Minister Lázaro Alberto Álvarez Casas, are also targets of CIF.
The Cuban president and high-ranking officials are being sanctioned for "their involvement in egregious human rights violations," the State Department said in a statement. Visa restrictions also apply to "numerous Cuban judicial and prison officials involved in the unjust detention and torture of protesters in July 2021," according to the same source.
Several hundred Cubans were sentenced to twenty-five years in prison for participating in the anti-government protests of July 11 and 12, 2021, the largest since the 1959 Castro revolution.
Some of them have been released in recent months after serving their sentences. Others were released as part of an agreement reached under the auspices of the Vatican after former US President Joe Biden removed the island from the US blacklist of state sponsors of terrorism. This decision was later reversed by Donald Trump.
The agreement provided for the release of 553 Cuban prisoners, but some of the July 2021 protesters are still in prison.
The United States can impose immigration sanctions against revolutionary leaders and wage a long and ruthless economic war against Cuba, but they have no power to break the will of this people or its leaders.
The US Secretary of State also accused the Cuban authorities on X of torturing dissident José Daniel Ferrer, imprisoned in the east of the country, and demanded "immediate confirmation of his life." The famous dissident José Daniel Ferrer, 54, was released as part of an agreement with the Vatican, but was re-imprisoned after his parole was revoked.
The State Department also added a recently opened 42-story state-owned hotel in Havana to the list of places prohibited for Americans, "to prevent the Cuban regime's repression from being financed with US dollars."
While the Cuban people suffer from a lack of food, water, medicine, and electricity, the regime wastes money.
Addition
US President Donald Trump reversed the previous Joe Biden administration's decision to remove Cuba from the list of state sponsors of terrorism. It is noted that Biden made the decision to remove Cuba from the list of state sponsors of terrorism less than a week ago - on January 15.