The year 2024 in Cuba began as the end of 2023 foreshadowed: badly. The declining economy, ineffective government policies, the persistent challenges of irregular migration, the increase in violence, and constant repression continue to define the daily reality for Cubans.
Food shortages and rising prices persist, the government continues to fail to provide basic food baskets, transportation and fuel crises continue, and begging is on the rise, particularly among vulnerable populations such as children and the elderly. This is all compounded by an escalating crisis of violence and insecurity.
During the month of January, the Cubalex team recorded 283 human rights violations, including 654 incidents of harassment distributed across 42 categories of repression. Among the most frequent were violations against persons deprived of their liberty, threats, the use of violence, and arbitrary detentions.
The report's legal analysis focuses on the lack of communication between lawyers and their clients. The Cubalex team analyzes how the pattern of professional negligence evidenced in the documented cases is related to the lack of autonomy of the legal sector in Cuba, which has a negative impact on the protection of people deprived of their liberty and their right to adequate legal representation.
This report was compiled using 581 records (298 news items about the context and 283 events of repression), which occurred between January 1 and 31, 2024, obtained mainly from Facebook publications (240), news on websites (184), Twitter (107) and information provided directly to Cubalex (34).
For more details on the violations documented by Cubalex, please see our full report: