Summary
Forced exile is not a legally recognized sanction under Cuban law, but the State has used various forms of pressure, harassment, and coercion to force activists and opponents to leave the country.
The practice can take different forms: offers of release to people already free, conditioning the release of political prisoners on their leaving the country, and agreements that are subsequently not respected by the authorities.
International law protects freedom of movement and the right of every person to leave any country, including their own, and prohibits arbitrarily depriving a person of the right to return to their country.
The departure from Cuba of former political prisoner and activist from Camagüey, Aniette González García It brings back to the table the use of exile as a result of a policy of pressure against people considered to be opponents by the authorities.
González left He left Cuba on September 12, 2026, bound for Guyana, after serving a three-year prison sentence and enduring several more months of harassment by State Security. From the South American country, he explained that he was also seeking medical attention for a throat and vocal cord condition that, he claimed, began during his imprisonment and had not been properly diagnosed in Cuba.
The activist also expressed fear of being imprisoned again if she remained on the island. “I always run the risk of being arrested again,” she stated.
His case is relevant because it illustrates one of the ways in which Exile can occur without a court order formally imposing banishment. González had already fully served his sentence in December 2025, but subsequent harassment and fear of further imprisonment contributed to creating the conditions that preceded his departure from the country.
So far in 2026, Cubalex monitoring It has documented eight events related to forced exile and 10 victims of this repressive incident. In addition, 13 events related to exile proposals are underreported.
Therefore, the fact that a person formally leaves Cuba of their own volition does not, in itself, allow us to conclude that it is a voluntary migration in the substantive sense. To determine whether forced exile exists, it is necessary to analyze the circumstances surrounding the departure, including threats, prior persecution, restrictions on rights, and the real alternatives the person had to remain in their country.
Luis Manuel Otero Alcántara: exile as a condition for regaining freedom
The case of the artist and activist Luis Manuel Otero Alcántara represents another form of this practice.
Otero Alcántara was due to be released on July 9, 2026, when he had fully completed his five-year sentence. However, two days earlier he was taken from the maximum-security prison in Guanajay, Artemisa, and transferred to a location whose His whereabouts were not publicly reported. He remained He was under the control of the authorities for several days and was eventually taken to the airport and transferred to the United States.
Cubalex's legal team filed an appeal habeas corpus to demand information about his situation. The Havana Provincial People's Court dismissed the appeal on July 20, by which time Otero Alcántara had already left Cuba. The court ruling acknowledged that the artist had fully served his sentence, but did not lead to his release within the country.
The departure took place on July 18, after the United States granted him humanitarian permission to enter the country. According to information released by his associates, since 2023 Otero Alcántara had accepted exile as the only way to continue his artistic and activist work, after years of harassment and imprisonment.
The case allows us to observe with particular clarity the difference between to leave the country freely and to leave the country as a result of a situation of coercion. Otero Alcántara had served his full sentence, which justified his imprisonment. However, instead of regaining his freedom within Cuba, he remained under state control until he was transferred out of the country. Cubalex denounced his expulsion and stated that his continued detention after serving his sentence lacked legal basis.
The case of Otero Alcántara is not an isolated incident. In recent years, exile has been linked to the release of people imprisoned for political reasons and to the pressure exerted against activists who remain free.
The strategy takes different forms. In some cases, State Security directly offers activists who remain free the opportunity to leave the country. In others, the possibility of leaving Cuba is presented as a condition for the release of a political prisoner. There are also cases in which the authorities propose exile as part of an agreement, but later renege on their part and keep the person imprisoned. Cubalex has documented these methods as pressure tactics used by the Cuban state.
In Cuba, that distinction is particularly important when the release occurs after a politically motivated conviction, during a detention that should have ended, or after a prolonged period of state harassment.
The absolute prohibition of exile as a political punishment
The act of forcing a citizen to leave their country because of their political beliefs directly violates the Article 9 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR), which expressly states that “No one shall be arbitrarily arrested, detained or exiled”. This prohibition is replicated at the regional level, in the Article 22.5 of the American Convention on Human Rights (ACHR), which states that “No one can be expelled from the territory of the State of which he is a national”.
International law interprets exile as an obsolete and absolutely illegal punishment. No state has the sovereignty or legal prerogative to expel its own citizens. When a state forces a citizen to leave because of their ideals or dissent, it is perpetrating an illegal expulsion that violates the person's identity and right to remain in their country.
Systematic harassment as a form of indirect expulsion
The tactic of subjecting an opponent to constant surveillance, threats, criminalization, and civic suffocation to force them to leave the country violates the right to personal liberty and security, recognized in the Article 9.1 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights – ICCPR), and the right to free movement and residence recognized in the Article 12.1 of the regulation itself.
In human rights doctrine, this is known as “indirect expulsion” or forced cross-border displacement. International bodies determine that leaving the country under these circumstances constitutes forced displacement. It is not voluntary. The state deliberately erodes the activist's living conditions and security, creating an environment of coercive terror. Having no other reasonable option to preserve their physical integrity or freedom, the decision to flee lacks genuine free consent, making the state responsible for forcing their departure as if it had expelled them by physical force.
Exile as a condition for liberation
Imprisoning an activist and then offering them release on the non-negotiable condition of leaving the country violates multiple norms: the prohibition of arbitrary detention established in the Article 9.1 of the ICCPR y Article 7 of the ACHR, and also the prohibition of torture and cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment established in the Article 7 of the ICCPR and the Convention against Torture, given the conditions of confinement prior to expulsion.
The UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention and other international mechanisms interpret this practice as state extortion where the consent is flawed. Accepting exile to escape arbitrary imprisonment, torture, or degrading treatment is not a product of free will, but of extreme coercion (a state of necessity). Legally, the State is not granting freedom, but rather substituting one violation (the arbitrary deprivation of physical liberty) for another (the illegal punishment of banishment).
The illegal ban on return
Once a dissident has been forced out, repressive regimes often prevent their return. This practice directly violates the Article 12.4 of the ICCPR, which states that “No one shall be arbitrarily deprived of the right to enter his own country”, and the Article 22.5 of the ACHR, which prohibits depriving a citizen “of the right to enter it”.
The UN Human Rights Committee (in its General Comment No. 27) has established that the right to return to one's country is almost absolute for nationals. International law interprets tactics such as refusing to renew passports, issuing entry bans (migration alerts), or threatening immediate imprisonment if a person sets foot on national territory as arbitrary interference and a continuing violation. Exile is not completed merely by leaving, but is perpetuated over time through the prohibition of return, thus consolidating a de facto and permanent banishment.
The classification as a Crime Against Humanity
When forced exile (whether due to harassment, conditional release, or a ban on return) ceases to be an isolated case and becomes a widespread or systematic state policy against a civilian group, it transcends human rights treaty violations and infringes upon the Article 7.1.d of the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court (ICC).
The Rome Statute typifies the “deportation or forced transfer of population” as a crime against humanity. International criminal jurisprudence interprets that expulsion need not be carried out through the direct use of physical force; the presence of coercive factors (such as fear of political persecution, abusive imprisonment, or systematic harassment) that compel individuals to legally leave their country constitutes forced displacement. At this level, responsibility no longer rests solely with the State before human rights courts, but also extends to individual and imprescriptible criminal responsibility for the officials who designed and implemented such policies.