Key points
- Visa restrictions imposed on top Cuban government officials
- Havana’s new luxury hotel added to restricted list
- US demands proof of life for jailed dissident
ISLAMABAD: The United States on Friday announced for the first time sanctions against Cuban President Miguel Diaz-Canel for his role “in the Cuban regime’s brutality toward the Cuban people.”
The US State Department was “restricting visas” for the president and other high-ranking government officials, Secretary of State Marco Rubio said in an X post on the fourth anniversary of historic anti-government protests in Cuba, according to AFP.
Four years since the Cuban regime’s brutal crackdown on protestors, @StateDept is restricting visas for Cuban regime figureheads @DiazCanelB, López Miera, Álvarez Casas, and their cronies for their role in the Cuban regime’s brutality toward the Cuban people. The @StateDept also…
— Secretary Marco Rubio (@SecRubio) July 11, 2025
Other officials sanctioned included Defence Minister Alvaro Lopez Miera and Interior Minister Lazaro Alberto Alvarez Casas.
Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno Rodriguez slammed the latest measures on X, saying that US President Donald Trump’s administration cannot “bend the will of its people or its leaders.”
EEUU es capaz de imponer sanciones migratorias contra dirigentes revolucionarios y de mantener una guerra económica prolongada y despiadada contra #Cuba, pero no tiene la capacidad de doblegar la voluntad de este pueblo ni de sus dirigentes.#CubaEstáFirme pic.twitter.com/1UmYRj3m40
— Bruno Rodríguez P (@BrunoRguezP) July 11, 2025
Restricted list of entities
The State Department also added the “Torre K,” a 42-story hotel in Havana, to its restricted list of entities to prevent US dollars from funding the Cuban regime’s repression.”
The establishment, recently inaugurated in a central area of the Cuban capital, sparked criticism of the government’s huge investment in new hotels at a time when tourism is declining.
“While the Cuban people suffer shortages of food, water, medicine, and electricity, the regime lavishes money on its insiders,” Rubio said.
Rubio also took to X to accuse Cuba of torturing dissident leader Jose Daniel Ferrer, four years after the government crushed massive protests.
The Cuban regime continues to torture pro-democracy activist José Daniel Ferrer.
The United States demands immediate proof of life and the release of all political prisoners.
— Secretary Marco Rubio (@SecRubio) July 11, 2025
Demanding immediate proof
“The United States demands immediate proof of life and the release of all political prisoners,” Rubio said.
Hundreds of people were arrested in the July 2021 demonstrations, the largest since the Cuban revolution in the 1950s.
They resulted in one death and dozens of wounded.
Ferrer, leader of the dissident group Patriotic Union of Cuba (UNPACU), was among 553 prisoners released in January after former US president Joe Biden agreed to remove the island from the blacklist of countries sponsoring terrorism, according to Al Jazeera.
But at the end of April, his parole was revoked, prompting criticism from Washington, which has put Cuba back on the blacklist after Trump returned to power.
