{"id":44679,"date":"2025-07-12T01:49:00","date_gmt":"2025-07-12T06:49:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/?p=44679"},"modified":"2025-07-12T00:45:35","modified_gmt":"2025-07-12T05:45:35","slug":"us-sanctions-cuban-president-diaz-canel-other-officials-for-human-rights-violations","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/?p=44679","title":{"rendered":"US sanctions Cuban President D\u00edaz-Canel, other officials for human rights violations"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

HAVANA — The United States government announced Friday it was sanctioning Cuban President Miguel D\u00edaz-Canel and other top officials for human rights violations and restricting access to visas on the anniversary of the biggest protests<\/a> on the island in recent decades.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said on social media platform X that the State Department also would impose visa restrictions on Cuban judicial and prison officials \u201cresponsible for, or complicit in, the unjust detention and torture of the July 2021 protesters.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The protests, which were not led by an opposition group, developed July 11 and 12, 2021, drawing attention to the depths of Cuba\u2019s economic crisis<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe U.S. will continue to stand for the human rights and fundamental freedoms of the people of Cuba, and make clear no illegitimate, dictatorial regimes are welcome in our hemisphere,\u201d Rubio said in the statement.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Trump administration has taken a harder line against Cuba’s government than the Biden administration.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In addition to D\u00edaz-Canel, the U.S. sanctioned Cuban Defense Minister \u00c1lvaro L\u00f3pez Miera and Interior Minister L\u00e1zaro \u00c1lvarez Casas.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Shortly after the announcement, Johana Tablada, deputy director of the U.S. department in the Cuban Foreign Ministry, lashed out at Rubio, calling him a \u201cdefender of genocide, prisons and mass deportations.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The rare protests in 2021 came about after repeated blackouts in Havana and other cities. One man died and some marches ended in vandalism.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Groups supporting the government responded along with authorities to repress the protests. Human rights groups estimated there were more than 1,000 arrests but the government gave no official figures.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At the time, the Cuban government said it was the result of a U.S. media campaign<\/a> and decades of U.S. sanctions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In 2022, Cuban prosecutors said some 790 people were investigated for acts related to the protests ranging from disorder to sabotage and vandalism.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The advocacy group 11J, whose name alludes to the protests, said late last year there were 554 people serving sentences related to the protests, but some were given conditional release in January after an appeal from Pope Francis<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

abcnews<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

HAVANA — The United States government announced Friday it was sanctioning Cuban President Miguel D\u00edaz-Canel and other top officials for human rights violations and restricting access to visas on the anniversary of the biggest protests on the island in recent decades. U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said on social media platform X that the State Department also […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":44680,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[30502,1436,1205],"class_list":["post-44679","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-politics","tag-az","tag-cuban","tag-president"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44679","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=44679"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44679\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":44681,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44679\/revisions\/44681"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/44680"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=44679"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=44679"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=44679"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}