Fully Authoritarian
World’s Population
Population
HRF classifies Cuba as ruled by a fully authoritarian regime.
Cuba’s modern political history has been shaped by long periods of authoritarian rule since the country gained its independence from Spain at the turn of the 20th century. Military officer Fulgencio Batista ended the country’s brief democratic experiment when he staged a coup d’etat in 1952. He established a military dictatorship that lasted until 1959, when Fidel Castro and the 26th of July Movement (M-26-7) overthrew Batista after years of armed insurgency. Following the Cuban Revolution, Fidel Castro and the M-26-7 took control of Cuba and began to consolidate power, targeting alleged Batista-allies, perceived opponents, and even former allies who did not align with Castro’s vision of post-revolutionary Cuba. Throughout 69 years of authoritarian rule, primarily as First Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Cuba (PCC), Fidel Castro transformed Cuba into a one-party dictatorship in which the PCC exerts power over all government institutions and engages in the systematic persecution of any forms of dissent. In 2008, Fidel Castro stepped down from the presidency due to his declining health, and his brother, Raúl Castro, became the new president of Cuba. Raúl Castro also became First Secretary of the PCC upon his brother’s death in 2011 and ruled Cuba until he retired in 2021. The current President and First Secretary of the PCC is Miguel Díaz-Canel; he has held these positions since 2019 and 2021, respectively. Under Díaz-Canel, Cuba remains a totalitarian one-party state in which the PCC wields absolute control over the government, the economy, and the civic life of Cubans.
In Cuba, national elections are a sham and only serve to ratify the candidates that the regime puts forward. Political opposition is outlawed, and the candidates who run for elections are pre-selected by the PCC. As a result, political campaigning is absent in Cuba; only information about the official PCC candidates circulates prior to elections. Candidates regularly run unopposed and claim victory with a very high percentage of the vote. Cuba’s electoral institutions and laws only serve to perpetuate the PCC in power.
Independent media, political leaders, civil society leaders, organizations, and members of the general public face overt and systematic retaliation if they openly criticize or challenge the regime of Miguel Díaz-Canel and the PCC. Independent media outlets are forced to operate underground; the Cuban state has a constitutional monopoly over the media, and journalism done outside the state is outlawed. Civil society law gives the PCC control over the recognition of organizations, which cannot be political in nature within Cuba’s one-party system. Individuals and groups that defy these prohibitions and voice criticism of the regime are systematically harassed, detained, abused, tortured, imprisoned, and forced into exile. Protests and gatherings of regime critics are systematically criminalized and repressed.
Institutions in Cuba fail to serve as a check on the regime in any capacity. The PCC wields power over all aspects of governance within the one party-state framework. There is no separation between the executive, legislative, and judicial branches. Judges and prosecutors are subservient to the regime. The PCC-controlled judiciary enables regime action that silences dissidents. At the same time that party critics are unfairly criminalized, Cuban officials are able to commit serious crimes with impunity.
In Cuba, national elections are a sham and only serve to ratify the candidates that the regime puts forward. The regime has outlawed the political opposition, which is unable to participate in elections. PCC candidates run unopposed and are required to claim high vote shares in order to legitimize the rule of the PCC. Electoral institutions and laws only serve to maintain one-party rule in Cuba.
The Cuban regime has completely barred real, mainstream opposition parties or candidates from competing in elections. Since 1961, the PCC has been the sole ruling party in Cuba. Its monopoly on power is constitutionally cemented: Article 5 of the 2019 Constitution stipulates that the PCC “is the superior driving force of the society and the State.” Cuba’s top ruler has historically held the post of First Secretary of the Communist Party of Cuba. After Miguel Díaz-Canel succeeded Raúl Castro as de facto ruler of Cuba, Díaz-Canel reformed the Constitution and restructured the executive to cast a façade of democratization; however, these changes did not meaningfully alter the electoral status quo. In Cuba, national legislative elections take place every five years. The president is selected by the members of the 470-seat National Assembly of People’s Power. In March 2023, all 470 PCC-selected candidates ran unopposed. Following the sham election, the PCC-controlled legislature re-elected Miguel Díaz-Canel to the presidency.
Moreover, the regime has completely taken over the electoral playing field, and its candidates generally claim victory with a very high vote share. In Cuba, legislative candidates are required to obtain an absolute majority of the votes (above 50%) to obtain a seat in the National Assembly. Electoral campaigns do not take place in Cuba as pre-selected PCC candidates run unopposed. The National Candidacies Commission (CCN) only distributes basic information about the official candidates. Since this system was introduced, no candidate has failed to surpass the 50% threshold, and almost all candidates have been elected with very high vote shares, exceeding 70%. In 2013, two candidates earned vote shares equal to or below 70% for the first time. This change and other recent changes in Cuban electoral data reflect a change in tactics by the regime. Prior to 2013, “the united vote” (“el voto unido”) was a central component of the PCC’s ideology, which compelled voters to cast slate votes for the party rather than votes for individual candidates. Since the 2013 elections, the PCC no longer issues directives in favor of slate voting, and there has been a subsequent rise in voting disparities among individual candidates. The regime has attempted to leverage this trend to construct a façade of electoral competition. However, the PCC maintains its full control over candidate selection; 100% of its candidates are elected to the legislature.
Independent electoral oversight does not exist in Cuba. The country’s electoral institutions and laws serve primarily to legitimize predetermined outcomes and present a veneer of democracy. The CCN selects the candidates who are allowed to participate in elections. While Cuban law includes provisions for the supposed grassroots nomination of candidates—in practice, the community organizations that compose the CCN are all subordinate to the PCC (such as the Committees for the Defense of the Revolution (CDR)). In effect, the CCN serves as a mechanism for the PCC to put forward its candidates. Moreover, in 2019, the reformed Constitution established a new permanent electoral institution, the National Electoral Council (CEN), to oversee elections. The members of the CEN are selected by the PCC-controlled National Assembly and, therefore, only serve to perpetuate the party in power. The first legislative elections overseen by the CEN in 2023 did not reflect any meaningful changes to the status quo.
In Cuba, independent media, political leaders, civil society leaders, organizations, and members of the general public face overt and systematic retaliation if they openly criticize or challenge the PCC. Independent media and political organizations are outlawed; dissenting organizations must usually operate underground. The organizations that operate within the regime’s legal framework are subordinated to the party in power; these PCC-controlled groups act as a façade of real civil society, but they have no real ability to criticize the party in power. Individuals and groups that criticize the regime are systematically harassed, detained, abused, tortured, imprisoned, and forced into exile. Protests are also systematically criminalized and repressed in Cuba. Protesters have regularly faced excessive use of force, arbitrary detentions, enforced disappearances, and torture.
Independent, dissenting organizations have been outlawed by the PCC. Cuba’s one-party system and its laws do not allow the formation of independent, dissenting organizations. For example, all legally recognized media is state-controlled. According to Article 55 of the Cuban Constitution, “the State establishes the principles of organization and operation for all means of social communication.” Through the Law of Associations (Law 54 of December 27, 1985), the PCC establishes its full control over the legal registration and recognition of civil society groups. As a result, the organizations that operate legally are PCC-controlled groups. Members of these official organizations can act, in effect, as non-state actors that enforce social compliance to the regime at the grassroots level. These non-state actors have also been known to surveil and harass dissidents on behalf of the regime.
To eliminate all forms of dissent, the PCC has systematically and seriously intimidated and obstructed the work of independent and dissenting media, political leaders, civil society leaders, organizations, or members of the general public. In Cuba, dissenting groups are forced to operate underground and are regularly targeted by the PCC. Regime critics are systematically subject to arbitrary detentions, imprisonment, as well as physical and psychological aggression from officials. In July 2025, the Cuban government released an updated list of entities and individuals accused of terrorism, including prominent dissident organizations like The Patriotic Union of Cuba (UNPACU), which is a movement of non-violent civil resistance against the PCC regime. Prior to the arbitrary terrorist designation, the UNPACU’s founder and leader, José Daniel Ferrer García, was arrested in April 2025. Since 2003, Ferrer García has been arrested and imprisoned countless times, spending cumulatively over a decade in prison, and becoming one of the most prominent dissidents remaining in Cuba. In October 2025, Ferrer García was released from prison and forced into exile. Similarly, the regime has targeted other dissident groups on the island, such as the Ladies in White and the San Isidro Movement (MSI), by imprisoning the leaders of these groups. For instance, in June 2022, MSI leader Luis Manuel Otero Alcántara was sentenced to five years in the Guanajay Maximum Security Prison, a prison known for its inhumane conditions and human rights violations. Another founding member of the MSI, Amaury Pacheco del Monte, was forced into exile in 2023 after he was effectively placed under house arrest and subject to systematic harassment and threats from officials.
Furthermore, the Cuban government has also systematically, seriously, and unfairly censored dissenting speech. Open criticism of the regime is systematically criminalized within the PCC’s repressive legal framework. Given the dissenting journalists and activists’ inability to operate overtly in Cuba, regime critics have used online spaces to be able to operate, as well as public criticism of the PCC. However, the PCC has increasingly cracked down on online dissent. According to the Spain-based civil society organization (CSO) Prisoners Defenders, in November 2025, there were at least 1,192 political prisoners in Cuba. Among those imprisoned for their dissent, there are both prominent activists as well as members of the general public, including minors. With the passage of laws such as the 2024 Law of Social Communication and the 2019 Decree Law 370 on the Computerization of Cuban Society, the PCC has stepped up its repression of dissenting speech, particularly in online spaces, enabling the regime to target private individuals for their personal opinions. For instance, in November 2025, William Sosa Marrero was arbitrarily detained by officials for publishing posts on Facebook in which he described and analyzed the current socioeconomic conditions of Cuba. At the time of his detention, which was done without an arrest warrant, Sosa Marrero faced charges of criminal disobedience. On July 28, 2022, Lázaro Yuri Valle Roca, an activist and independent reporter, was sentenced to five years in prison for “crimes of resistance and enemy propaganda of a continuous nature,” after he posted on his YouTube channel Delibera a video about the pro-democracy leaflets that had been thrown down onto the street from a building in Havana. In June 2024, Valle Roca was released from prison and forced into exile. The PCC’s attempts to broaden its repression and silence any dissent from members of the general public are reflected in its 2025 list of entities and individuals with ties to terrorism, which includes social media influencers and YouTubers who have expressed criticism of the PCC.
In its repressive campaign to silence dissent, the PCC has also systematically forcibly disappeared and occasionally killed dissidents. Between 2012 and 2025, the United Nations Committee on Enforced Disappearances adopted 193 urgent action requests with regard to forced disappearances in Cuba—which places it as the country with the fourth most urgent action requests before the Committee. While many of the dissidents who are forcibly disappeared are ultimately located, the enforced disappearances serve to intimidate and generate fear among the victims’ entourage and the broader dissident community. Moreover, arbitrarily detained and forcibly disappeared dissidents face significant risks of abuse, torture, and other human rights violations. In the most extreme cases, the abuse of detained and imprisoned individuals has resulted in the death of dissidents. The Mexico-based CSO, the Center for Documenting Cuban Prisons (CDPC), has recorded that at least 116 deaths have occurred in Cuban prisons between 2023 and 2025. This figure includes the death of political prisoners and detained dissidents, including protestor Yoleisy Oviedo Rodríguez, who died in February 2025 in a forced labor camp at the El Guatao Women’s Prison. Officials systematically abuse and torture prisoners as well as deny political prisoners access to vital medical attention, as in the case of Yoleisy Oviedo Rodríguez. The inhumane conditions and systematic violation of human rights have contributed to the deaths of dissidents in Cuban prisons. Occasionally, PCC officials have been more directly implicated in the killing of dissidents. For instance, HRF published a report in 2015 in which it concluded that the Cuban regime was responsible for the deaths of prominent dissidents Oswaldo Payá and Harold Cepero, who died in a car crash on June 22, 2012. In 2023, a separate inquiry by the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) corroborated HRF’s findings. At the time of Payá’s and Cepero’s deaths, a government vehicle was in pursuit of the dissidents, and according to an eyewitness testimony, the government vehicle hit the dissidents’ vehicle.
Protests and gatherings have been systematically, seriously, and unfairly repressed by the PCC. While the right to assembly is included within the Cuban Constitution, officials systematically criminalize protests to justify crackdowns against protesters, who are regularly subjected to arbitrary detentions, enforced disappearances, torture, and abuse by officials. Family members of protesters and dissidents can also face harassment as a form of coercion by proxy. In June 2025, university students across Cuba led the largest protest since July 2021 (11J or 11-J). Students went on strike in protest of rising Internet prices, which limit Cubans’ access to information from outside the island. Students also voiced discontent with a lack of transparency from university officials and other grievances. In response to the protests, the regime deployed security forces on university campuses to intimidate students and repress dissent. According to some students, state security forces initiated interrogations to identify the individuals who were responsible for organizing the strike. Officials detained at least one student, Raymar Aguado Hernández, in connection with these protests. In August 2021, the PCC passed Decree Law 35 and Ministry of Communications Resolution 105, which further criminalized dissent online—empowering the Díaz-Canel regime to persecute anyone who “incites mobilizations” and cut off social media and internet access of dissidents. The passage of Decree Law 35 followed the massive pro-democracy demonstrations that took place nationwide in July 2021. In retaliation, the regime has arbitrarily arrested over 1,500 people in relation to the protests, according to the CSO Justicia 11J. While the majority of the detained protesters have been released, Prisoners Defenders estimated that 11J protesters made up approximately 65% of the political prisoners in Cuba as of July 2025. For instance, MSI leaders Luis Manuel Otero Alcántara and Maykel Castillo remained in prison throughout 2025 due to their participation in the 11J protests. Otero Alcántara and Castillo composed a viral hip-hop song that became the 11J protest anthem, “Patria y Vida,” and were subsequently detained and sentenced to five and nine years in prison, respectively, for violating Decree 349, which requires all artistic activity to be pre-approved by the Cuban Ministry of Culture.
Institutions in Cuba fail to serve as a check on the regime in any capacity. The regime concentrates all political power in the PCC, which effectively eliminates separation between the executive, legislative, and judicial branches. The party in power maintains strict control over judicial appointments and proceedings. The PCC-controlled judiciary has, therefore, been instrumental in criminalizing and silencing critical voices. At the same time that critics are unfairly criminalized, officials are able to commit serious crimes with impunity.
There are no independent executive, legislative, judicial, or oversight institutions in Cuba. Political powers are constitutionally monopolized by the PCC. Despite the fact that the Cuban Constitution includes articles purporting there to be a functional independence of institutions, these claims only serve as a linguistic democratic façade. Real independence is effectively nonexistent in a system in which one party is the “superior driving force of the society and the State” (Article 5). As a result, the First Secretary of the PCC acts as the de facto ruler of Cuba. The Council of Ministers is the executive institution through which the PCC wields its power. Historically, the First Secretary has also held the post of President of the Council of Ministers. During the transitional period in which Miguel Díaz-Canel succeeded Raúl Castro as leader of the PCC (2018 – 2021), the presidency was reshaped into its own office, and the Council of Ministers became subordinate to the President. However, the reconfiguration of the executive branch did not meaningfully change the status quo. Díaz-Canel leads the PCC and rules the country as both First Secretary and President. Meanwhile, the National Assembly of People’s Power is a rubber-stamp institution that only serves to codify party directives and give an appearance of separation of powers. It convenes twice annually, and in practice, only approves decisions made by the PCC. When the National Assembly is not in session, the Council of State exercises legislative power. It consists of 21 legislators who are selected by the National Assembly, and serves as a way to further centralize power. Similarly, Cuban courts are part of the party-state apparatus and lack the power to check the actions of the PCC. The Council of State and the National Assembly wield full control over appointments to the People’s Supreme Court, which is the highest judicial instance in Cuba. Moreover, while the 2019 Constitution includes provisions for the judiciary’s independence in Article 148, it contradicts this claim in Articles 154 and 155, which effectively subordinate the Supreme Court to the PCC-run legislature.
Courts have systematically, frequently, and unfairly enabled the PCC’s attempts to repress criticism or retaliate against those who express open opposition to its most prominent, widely publicized policies. The Cuban judiciary regularly enables the jailing of dissidents on politically motivated charges. Between 2019 and November 2025, the United Nations Working Group on Arbitrary Detention (WGAD) was able to record and verify that at least 93 cases of arbitrary detentions had taken place in Cuba, placing it as the country with the most arbitrary detentions recorded globally by the WGAD. Arbitrary detentions take place when individuals are deprived of their liberty in retaliation for exercising a basic right, such as freedom of expression or assembly. Once they are detained, dissidents are frequently subjected to sham trials and sentenced to prison as well as forced labor camps on vague and fabricated charges, such as inciting public disorder or spreading enemy propaganda. According to WGAD, detainees are regularly denied access to a legal defense and may not be presented before a judge. In January 2025, a rare exception occurred when two peaceful protesters were absolved by the Provincial Tribunal of Santiago de Cuba due to a lack of evidence. However, federal prosecutors appealed the case, and in September 2025, Ana Ibis Tristá Padilla and Jarol Varona Agüero were sentenced to prison for 14 and 13 years, respectively, for threatening national security, among other trumped-up charges. During the appeals process, prosecutors failed to supply any new evidence of the supposed crimes, but the Provincial Tribunal nonetheless overturned its previous ruling under the pressure of state officials.
Judicial, legislative, and executive institutions have systematically, frequently, and unfairly failed to hold officials accountable. In Cuba, officials are able to commit serious crimes with impunity—they systematically violate the human rights of dissidents through unfair detentions and abuse committed during detention. Prison staff and security forces regularly abuse and torture political prisoners, in addition to depriving them of food, communication with their families, and lifesaving medical attention. Some prisoners and detainees have also died in custody from beatings. The deaths of political prisoners are not investigated, and families are denied autopsy reports. PCC party officials, such as Foreign Minister Bruno Rodríguez Parrilla, regularly deny that human rights violations take place in Cuba. In some cases, such as in the deaths of civil society leaders Oswaldo Payá and Harold Cepero, officials attempt to pin the blame on innocent third parties. After Payá and Cepero died in a car crash trying to escape pursuit from regime officials in 2012, the surviving driver, Ángel Carromero, was unfairly prosecuted and convicted of being responsible for the crash. In 2023, the IACHR found that Carromero’s judicial guarantees had been violated. The Cuban government leveraged Carromero’s unfair prosecution to avoid taking responsibility for the deaths of Payá and Cepero.
HRF classifies Cuba as ruled by a fully authoritarian regime.
Cuba’s modern political history has been shaped by long periods of authoritarian rule since the country gained its independence from Spain at the turn of the 20th century. Military officer Fulgencio Batista ended the country’s brief democratic experiment when he staged a coup d’etat in 1952. He established a military dictatorship that lasted until 1959, when Fidel Castro and the 26th of July Movement (M-26-7) overthrew Batista after years of armed insurgency. Following the Cuban Revolution, Fidel Castro and the M-26-7 took control of Cuba and began to consolidate power, targeting alleged Batista-allies, perceived opponents, and even former allies who did not align with Castro’s vision of post-revolutionary Cuba. Throughout 69 years of authoritarian rule, primarily as First Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Cuba (PCC), Fidel Castro transformed Cuba into a one-party dictatorship in which the PCC exerts power over all government institutions and engages in the systematic persecution of any forms of dissent. In 2008, Fidel Castro stepped down from the presidency due to his declining health, and his brother, Raúl Castro, became the new president of Cuba. Raúl Castro also became First Secretary of the PCC upon his brother’s death in 2011 and ruled Cuba until he retired in 2021. The current President and First Secretary of the PCC is Miguel Díaz-Canel; he has held these positions since 2019 and 2021, respectively. Under Díaz-Canel, Cuba remains a totalitarian one-party state in which the PCC wields absolute control over the government, the economy, and the civic life of Cubans.
In Cuba, national elections are a sham and only serve to ratify the candidates that the regime puts forward. Political opposition is outlawed, and the candidates who run for elections are pre-selected by the PCC. As a result, political campaigning is absent in Cuba; only information about the official PCC candidates circulates prior to elections. Candidates regularly run unopposed and claim victory with a very high percentage of the vote. Cuba’s electoral institutions and laws only serve to perpetuate the PCC in power.
Independent media, political leaders, civil society leaders, organizations, and members of the general public face overt and systematic retaliation if they openly criticize or challenge the regime of Miguel Díaz-Canel and the PCC. Independent media outlets are forced to operate underground; the Cuban state has a constitutional monopoly over the media, and journalism done outside the state is outlawed. Civil society law gives the PCC control over the recognition of organizations, which cannot be political in nature within Cuba’s one-party system. Individuals and groups that defy these prohibitions and voice criticism of the regime are systematically harassed, detained, abused, tortured, imprisoned, and forced into exile. Protests and gatherings of regime critics are systematically criminalized and repressed.
Institutions in Cuba fail to serve as a check on the regime in any capacity. The PCC wields power over all aspects of governance within the one party-state framework. There is no separation between the executive, legislative, and judicial branches. Judges and prosecutors are subservient to the regime. The PCC-controlled judiciary enables regime action that silences dissidents. At the same time that party critics are unfairly criminalized, Cuban officials are able to commit serious crimes with impunity.
In Cuba, national elections are a sham and only serve to ratify the candidates that the regime puts forward. The regime has outlawed the political opposition, which is unable to participate in elections. PCC candidates run unopposed and are required to claim high vote shares in order to legitimize the rule of the PCC. Electoral institutions and laws only serve to maintain one-party rule in Cuba.
The Cuban regime has completely barred real, mainstream opposition parties or candidates from competing in elections. Since 1961, the PCC has been the sole ruling party in Cuba. Its monopoly on power is constitutionally cemented: Article 5 of the 2019 Constitution stipulates that the PCC “is the superior driving force of the society and the State.” Cuba’s top ruler has historically held the post of First Secretary of the Communist Party of Cuba. After Miguel Díaz-Canel succeeded Raúl Castro as de facto ruler of Cuba, Díaz-Canel reformed the Constitution and restructured the executive to cast a façade of democratization; however, these changes did not meaningfully alter the electoral status quo. In Cuba, national legislative elections take place every five years. The president is selected by the members of the 470-seat National Assembly of People’s Power. In March 2023, all 470 PCC-selected candidates ran unopposed. Following the sham election, the PCC-controlled legislature re-elected Miguel Díaz-Canel to the presidency.
Moreover, the regime has completely taken over the electoral playing field, and its candidates generally claim victory with a very high vote share. In Cuba, legislative candidates are required to obtain an absolute majority of the votes (above 50%) to obtain a seat in the National Assembly. Electoral campaigns do not take place in Cuba as pre-selected PCC candidates run unopposed. The National Candidacies Commission (CCN) only distributes basic information about the official candidates. Since this system was introduced, no candidate has failed to surpass the 50% threshold, and almost all candidates have been elected with very high vote shares, exceeding 70%. In 2013, two candidates earned vote shares equal to or below 70% for the first time. This change and other recent changes in Cuban electoral data reflect a change in tactics by the regime. Prior to 2013, “the united vote” (“el voto unido”) was a central component of the PCC’s ideology, which compelled voters to cast slate votes for the party rather than votes for individual candidates. Since the 2013 elections, the PCC no longer issues directives in favor of slate voting, and there has been a subsequent rise in voting disparities among individual candidates. The regime has attempted to leverage this trend to construct a façade of electoral competition. However, the PCC maintains its full control over candidate selection; 100% of its candidates are elected to the legislature.
Independent electoral oversight does not exist in Cuba. The country’s electoral institutions and laws serve primarily to legitimize predetermined outcomes and present a veneer of democracy. The CCN selects the candidates who are allowed to participate in elections. While Cuban law includes provisions for the supposed grassroots nomination of candidates—in practice, the community organizations that compose the CCN are all subordinate to the PCC (such as the Committees for the Defense of the Revolution (CDR)). In effect, the CCN serves as a mechanism for the PCC to put forward its candidates. Moreover, in 2019, the reformed Constitution established a new permanent electoral institution, the National Electoral Council (CEN), to oversee elections. The members of the CEN are selected by the PCC-controlled National Assembly and, therefore, only serve to perpetuate the party in power. The first legislative elections overseen by the CEN in 2023 did not reflect any meaningful changes to the status quo.
In Cuba, independent media, political leaders, civil society leaders, organizations, and members of the general public face overt and systematic retaliation if they openly criticize or challenge the PCC. Independent media and political organizations are outlawed; dissenting organizations must usually operate underground. The organizations that operate within the regime’s legal framework are subordinated to the party in power; these PCC-controlled groups act as a façade of real civil society, but they have no real ability to criticize the party in power. Individuals and groups that criticize the regime are systematically harassed, detained, abused, tortured, imprisoned, and forced into exile. Protests are also systematically criminalized and repressed in Cuba. Protesters have regularly faced excessive use of force, arbitrary detentions, enforced disappearances, and torture.
Independent, dissenting organizations have been outlawed by the PCC. Cuba’s one-party system and its laws do not allow the formation of independent, dissenting organizations. For example, all legally recognized media is state-controlled. According to Article 55 of the Cuban Constitution, “the State establishes the principles of organization and operation for all means of social communication.” Through the Law of Associations (Law 54 of December 27, 1985), the PCC establishes its full control over the legal registration and recognition of civil society groups. As a result, the organizations that operate legally are PCC-controlled groups. Members of these official organizations can act, in effect, as non-state actors that enforce social compliance to the regime at the grassroots level. These non-state actors have also been known to surveil and harass dissidents on behalf of the regime.
To eliminate all forms of dissent, the PCC has systematically and seriously intimidated and obstructed the work of independent and dissenting media, political leaders, civil society leaders, organizations, or members of the general public. In Cuba, dissenting groups are forced to operate underground and are regularly targeted by the PCC. Regime critics are systematically subject to arbitrary detentions, imprisonment, as well as physical and psychological aggression from officials. In July 2025, the Cuban government released an updated list of entities and individuals accused of terrorism, including prominent dissident organizations like The Patriotic Union of Cuba (UNPACU), which is a movement of non-violent civil resistance against the PCC regime. Prior to the arbitrary terrorist designation, the UNPACU’s founder and leader, José Daniel Ferrer García, was arrested in April 2025. Since 2003, Ferrer García has been arrested and imprisoned countless times, spending cumulatively over a decade in prison, and becoming one of the most prominent dissidents remaining in Cuba. In October 2025, Ferrer García was released from prison and forced into exile. Similarly, the regime has targeted other dissident groups on the island, such as the Ladies in White and the San Isidro Movement (MSI), by imprisoning the leaders of these groups. For instance, in June 2022, MSI leader Luis Manuel Otero Alcántara was sentenced to five years in the Guanajay Maximum Security Prison, a prison known for its inhumane conditions and human rights violations. Another founding member of the MSI, Amaury Pacheco del Monte, was forced into exile in 2023 after he was effectively placed under house arrest and subject to systematic harassment and threats from officials.
Furthermore, the Cuban government has also systematically, seriously, and unfairly censored dissenting speech. Open criticism of the regime is systematically criminalized within the PCC’s repressive legal framework. Given the dissenting journalists and activists’ inability to operate overtly in Cuba, regime critics have used online spaces to be able to operate, as well as public criticism of the PCC. However, the PCC has increasingly cracked down on online dissent. According to the Spain-based civil society organization (CSO) Prisoners Defenders, in November 2025, there were at least 1,192 political prisoners in Cuba. Among those imprisoned for their dissent, there are both prominent activists as well as members of the general public, including minors. With the passage of laws such as the 2024 Law of Social Communication and the 2019 Decree Law 370 on the Computerization of Cuban Society, the PCC has stepped up its repression of dissenting speech, particularly in online spaces, enabling the regime to target private individuals for their personal opinions. For instance, in November 2025, William Sosa Marrero was arbitrarily detained by officials for publishing posts on Facebook in which he described and analyzed the current socioeconomic conditions of Cuba. At the time of his detention, which was done without an arrest warrant, Sosa Marrero faced charges of criminal disobedience. On July 28, 2022, Lázaro Yuri Valle Roca, an activist and independent reporter, was sentenced to five years in prison for “crimes of resistance and enemy propaganda of a continuous nature,” after he posted on his YouTube channel Delibera a video about the pro-democracy leaflets that had been thrown down onto the street from a building in Havana. In June 2024, Valle Roca was released from prison and forced into exile. The PCC’s attempts to broaden its repression and silence any dissent from members of the general public are reflected in its 2025 list of entities and individuals with ties to terrorism, which includes social media influencers and YouTubers who have expressed criticism of the PCC.
In its repressive campaign to silence dissent, the PCC has also systematically forcibly disappeared and occasionally killed dissidents. Between 2012 and 2025, the United Nations Committee on Enforced Disappearances adopted 193 urgent action requests with regard to forced disappearances in Cuba—which places it as the country with the fourth most urgent action requests before the Committee. While many of the dissidents who are forcibly disappeared are ultimately located, the enforced disappearances serve to intimidate and generate fear among the victims’ entourage and the broader dissident community. Moreover, arbitrarily detained and forcibly disappeared dissidents face significant risks of abuse, torture, and other human rights violations. In the most extreme cases, the abuse of detained and imprisoned individuals has resulted in the death of dissidents. The Mexico-based CSO, the Center for Documenting Cuban Prisons (CDPC), has recorded that at least 116 deaths have occurred in Cuban prisons between 2023 and 2025. This figure includes the death of political prisoners and detained dissidents, including protestor Yoleisy Oviedo Rodríguez, who died in February 2025 in a forced labor camp at the El Guatao Women’s Prison. Officials systematically abuse and torture prisoners as well as deny political prisoners access to vital medical attention, as in the case of Yoleisy Oviedo Rodríguez. The inhumane conditions and systematic violation of human rights have contributed to the deaths of dissidents in Cuban prisons. Occasionally, PCC officials have been more directly implicated in the killing of dissidents. For instance, HRF published a report in 2015 in which it concluded that the Cuban regime was responsible for the deaths of prominent dissidents Oswaldo Payá and Harold Cepero, who died in a car crash on June 22, 2012. In 2023, a separate inquiry by the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) corroborated HRF’s findings. At the time of Payá’s and Cepero’s deaths, a government vehicle was in pursuit of the dissidents, and according to an eyewitness testimony, the government vehicle hit the dissidents’ vehicle.
Protests and gatherings have been systematically, seriously, and unfairly repressed by the PCC. While the right to assembly is included within the Cuban Constitution, officials systematically criminalize protests to justify crackdowns against protesters, who are regularly subjected to arbitrary detentions, enforced disappearances, torture, and abuse by officials. Family members of protesters and dissidents can also face harassment as a form of coercion by proxy. In June 2025, university students across Cuba led the largest protest since July 2021 (11J or 11-J). Students went on strike in protest of rising Internet prices, which limit Cubans’ access to information from outside the island. Students also voiced discontent with a lack of transparency from university officials and other grievances. In response to the protests, the regime deployed security forces on university campuses to intimidate students and repress dissent. According to some students, state security forces initiated interrogations to identify the individuals who were responsible for organizing the strike. Officials detained at least one student, Raymar Aguado Hernández, in connection with these protests. In August 2021, the PCC passed Decree Law 35 and Ministry of Communications Resolution 105, which further criminalized dissent online—empowering the Díaz-Canel regime to persecute anyone who “incites mobilizations” and cut off social media and internet access of dissidents. The passage of Decree Law 35 followed the massive pro-democracy demonstrations that took place nationwide in July 2021. In retaliation, the regime has arbitrarily arrested over 1,500 people in relation to the protests, according to the CSO Justicia 11J. While the majority of the detained protesters have been released, Prisoners Defenders estimated that 11J protesters made up approximately 65% of the political prisoners in Cuba as of July 2025. For instance, MSI leaders Luis Manuel Otero Alcántara and Maykel Castillo remained in prison throughout 2025 due to their participation in the 11J protests. Otero Alcántara and Castillo composed a viral hip-hop song that became the 11J protest anthem, “Patria y Vida,” and were subsequently detained and sentenced to five and nine years in prison, respectively, for violating Decree 349, which requires all artistic activity to be pre-approved by the Cuban Ministry of Culture.
Institutions in Cuba fail to serve as a check on the regime in any capacity. The regime concentrates all political power in the PCC, which effectively eliminates separation between the executive, legislative, and judicial branches. The party in power maintains strict control over judicial appointments and proceedings. The PCC-controlled judiciary has, therefore, been instrumental in criminalizing and silencing critical voices. At the same time that critics are unfairly criminalized, officials are able to commit serious crimes with impunity.
There are no independent executive, legislative, judicial, or oversight institutions in Cuba. Political powers are constitutionally monopolized by the PCC. Despite the fact that the Cuban Constitution includes articles purporting there to be a functional independence of institutions, these claims only serve as a linguistic democratic façade. Real independence is effectively nonexistent in a system in which one party is the “superior driving force of the society and the State” (Article 5). As a result, the First Secretary of the PCC acts as the de facto ruler of Cuba. The Council of Ministers is the executive institution through which the PCC wields its power. Historically, the First Secretary has also held the post of President of the Council of Ministers. During the transitional period in which Miguel Díaz-Canel succeeded Raúl Castro as leader of the PCC (2018 – 2021), the presidency was reshaped into its own office, and the Council of Ministers became subordinate to the President. However, the reconfiguration of the executive branch did not meaningfully change the status quo. Díaz-Canel leads the PCC and rules the country as both First Secretary and President. Meanwhile, the National Assembly of People’s Power is a rubber-stamp institution that only serves to codify party directives and give an appearance of separation of powers. It convenes twice annually, and in practice, only approves decisions made by the PCC. When the National Assembly is not in session, the Council of State exercises legislative power. It consists of 21 legislators who are selected by the National Assembly, and serves as a way to further centralize power. Similarly, Cuban courts are part of the party-state apparatus and lack the power to check the actions of the PCC. The Council of State and the National Assembly wield full control over appointments to the People’s Supreme Court, which is the highest judicial instance in Cuba. Moreover, while the 2019 Constitution includes provisions for the judiciary’s independence in Article 148, it contradicts this claim in Articles 154 and 155, which effectively subordinate the Supreme Court to the PCC-run legislature.
Courts have systematically, frequently, and unfairly enabled the PCC’s attempts to repress criticism or retaliate against those who express open opposition to its most prominent, widely publicized policies. The Cuban judiciary regularly enables the jailing of dissidents on politically motivated charges. Between 2019 and November 2025, the United Nations Working Group on Arbitrary Detention (WGAD) was able to record and verify that at least 93 cases of arbitrary detentions had taken place in Cuba, placing it as the country with the most arbitrary detentions recorded globally by the WGAD. Arbitrary detentions take place when individuals are deprived of their liberty in retaliation for exercising a basic right, such as freedom of expression or assembly. Once they are detained, dissidents are frequently subjected to sham trials and sentenced to prison as well as forced labor camps on vague and fabricated charges, such as inciting public disorder or spreading enemy propaganda. According to WGAD, detainees are regularly denied access to a legal defense and may not be presented before a judge. In January 2025, a rare exception occurred when two peaceful protesters were absolved by the Provincial Tribunal of Santiago de Cuba due to a lack of evidence. However, federal prosecutors appealed the case, and in September 2025, Ana Ibis Tristá Padilla and Jarol Varona Agüero were sentenced to prison for 14 and 13 years, respectively, for threatening national security, among other trumped-up charges. During the appeals process, prosecutors failed to supply any new evidence of the supposed crimes, but the Provincial Tribunal nonetheless overturned its previous ruling under the pressure of state officials.
Judicial, legislative, and executive institutions have systematically, frequently, and unfairly failed to hold officials accountable. In Cuba, officials are able to commit serious crimes with impunity—they systematically violate the human rights of dissidents through unfair detentions and abuse committed during detention. Prison staff and security forces regularly abuse and torture political prisoners, in addition to depriving them of food, communication with their families, and lifesaving medical attention. Some prisoners and detainees have also died in custody from beatings. The deaths of political prisoners are not investigated, and families are denied autopsy reports. PCC party officials, such as Foreign Minister Bruno Rodríguez Parrilla, regularly deny that human rights violations take place in Cuba. In some cases, such as in the deaths of civil society leaders Oswaldo Payá and Harold Cepero, officials attempt to pin the blame on innocent third parties. After Payá and Cepero died in a car crash trying to escape pursuit from regime officials in 2012, the surviving driver, Ángel Carromero, was unfairly prosecuted and convicted of being responsible for the crash. In 2023, the IACHR found that Carromero’s judicial guarantees had been violated. The Cuban government leveraged Carromero’s unfair prosecution to avoid taking responsibility for the deaths of Payá and Cepero.
