Resolution on the political repression and humanitarian situation in Cuba

The European Parliament adopted by 283 votes to 199, with 85 abstentions, a resolution on the political repression and humanitarian situation in Cuba.

The text adopted in plenary was tabled by the EPP, ECR and Renew groups.

More than five decades of political and economic choices by the Cuban communist regime have driven the country into a profound crisis, marked by blackouts of up to 22 hours a day, acute shortages of food, water, fuel and medicine and widespread poverty, under a constitutionally entrenched one-party regime that has lasted for more than 67 years, and in which it is the only permitted political force.

Parliament condemned in the strongest terms the systematic repression carried out by the Cuban regime – in particular the torture, sexual violence, death threats, forced malnutrition, mass surveillance, forced labour and judicial persecution inflicted on political prisoners, protesters, dissidents, students, religious leaders and human-rights defenders – and the imprisonment of children. It expressed its full solidarity with the Cuban people and with all those persecuted for defending their fundamental rights, including the leaders of the historical and emerging democratic opposition, and independent civic movements.

The resolution demanded:

- the immediate and unconditional release of all political prisoners and of all persons arbitrarily detained for exercising their fundamental rights;

- immediate access to free and fair trials, and to medical care for those in serious ill health, and full reparation for the victims of torture.

The Cuban regime is called on to:

- put forward sustainable and meaningful economic reforms that ensure legal certainty and support independent economic actors, private initiatives, investments and freedoms, as essential ways to avoid collapse;

- protect human rights and to guarantee the right to peaceful assembly and freedom of expression without discrimination based on political views.

Parliament criticised the Cuban regime’s material support for Russia's war of aggression against Ukraine, including the recruitment of Cuban nationals to fight against Ukraine, and its deepening military cooperation with Moscow. It also condemned its alignment with the Lukashenka regime in Belarus.

Parliament called for:

- targeted measures under the EU Magnitsky Act against those responsible for repression, beginning with the most senior officials of the regime, including Miguel Díaz-Canel and the senior chain of command of the security, judicial and penitentiary apparatus, and against the leadership of GAESA - the military conglomerate controlling close to half of the island's economy;

- the regime to abolish the pre-criminal mechanisms used to silence and arbitrarily imprison citizens, and to release all those convicted under them without any crime having been committed;

- an independent international investigation into prison conditions, the regime of forced malnutrition and deaths in custody;

- humanitarian channels delivering energy, food and medicine directly to the Cuban people and independent enterprises, bypassing the state.

Lastly, Parliament stands ready, together with the international community, to provide Cuba with substantial assistance through channels independent of the government while it embarks on a credible democratic transition.