Raul Castro - Page 2

The U.S. Treasury Department announced on Wednesday that it would label Cuban regime moneymaker Luis Alberto Rodríguez López-Calleja a “specially designated person,” freezing all assets within U.S. reach and banning Americans from doing business with him.

Cuban political dissident Silverio Portal Contreras, serving a four-year prison sentence for “disrespect” to the communist regime, has lost sight in one of his eyes after a particularly vicious police beating, his wife denounced this week.

Former Vice President Joe Biden told Miami-area CBS 4 on Monday evening that he would restore President Barack Obama’s policy of “engagement’ with the communist regime in Cuba.

The Communist Party of Cuba admitted on Thursday it was at risk for a Chinese coronavirus outbreak, as an allied nation of China’s that has openly courted Chinese tourism, and claimed to put into place a “prevention and control” plan in the event of an internal epidemic.

Human rights groups revealed Thursday that José Daniel Ferrer, the head of the largest dissident organization in Cuba, is nearing death after a month in prison in which guards are reportedly feeding him rotten food and “semi-fecal” water.

Cuban former political prisoners and human rights activists held a vigil Friday in front of the United Nations offices of the communist regime to honor Armando Sosa Fortuny, who died this week after serving 43 years as a prisoner of conscience.

The mother of a one-year-old killed in a Cuban clinic after receiving a routine vaccination launched an awareness campaign Tuesday urging social media users to share a photo of her in the hope that the communist regime gives her answers.

A remarkable story is taking place in Florida and the mainstream media has missed it. It deals with the political recovery of the Cuban-American community in its decades-long struggle to free Cuba from a brutal Communist dictatorship.

The U.S. Department of State designated Cuban dictator Raúl Castro and four family members on Thursday, banning them from entering the United States and strengthening the case against them for “gross violations of human rights.”

Cubans and Cuban-Americans on social media are pressuring American politicians to rescind, or at least launch an investigation into, the immigration status of superstar dance-pop group Gente de Zona, whose members perform freely in Cuba and have openly praised dictator Fidel Castro.

The communist regime in control of Cuba loudly protested a mass suspension of its Twitter accounts between Wednesday and Thursday for violating the site’s terms of use.

Police arrested over 100 pro-democracy dissidents, dozens of which remain missing at press time, in Cuba on Sunday both in anticipation of and to shut down a protest event underway to observe the feast day of the patron saint of Cuba, Our Lady of Charity (La Virgen de la Caridad del Cobre).

The Patriotic Union of Cuba (UNPACU), the largest Cuban dissident group on the island, and the Cuba Decide movement, an organization dedicated to bringing free and fair elections to the island, announced this week a mass protest to honor Cuba’s patron saint, Our Lady of Charity, on her feast day, Sunday.

Ramón Saúl Sánchez, a Cuban pro-democracy leader who has been active in the struggle against communism for 50 years, recently received notice that the U.S. government denied his request for permanent residence in the country. If returned to the island, “they will execute me or put me in prison for the rest of my life,” Sánchez told Breitbart News.

Healthcare authorities in Cuba blamed a “complex situation” Tuesday for growing shortages of basic medicines that many in the country need to stay alive, stating that as many as 44 key medications will remain elusive nationwide throughout August.

China’s Xinhua news agency published images Sunday of the debut of a new, Chinese-built railway connecting Havana to Santiago de Cuba, the largest cities on the east and west coasts of the island, respectively.

Senator Marco Rubio (R-FL) debuted a Spanish-language Twitter account Thursday dedicated to communicating with the Cuban people.

The Patriotic Union of Cuba (UNPACU), one of the island’s largest dissident groups, published evidence of the Castro regime selling rotten meat to locals in eastern Santiago de Cuba at a market that has no functioning refrigeration, the Spanish newspaper Diario de Cuba reported on Sunday.

Chilean lawmaker Luis Pardo Sainz co-sponsored a bill this week urging Santiago to help create a court to prosecute human rights violations by the communist government of Cuba. Pardo Sainz told Breitbart News Friday that the move is necessary because the world has “forgotten” the Castro regime’s crimes.

An over 200-page report published by a coalition of human rights NGOs Wednesday concluded “without fear of error” that Cuba has violently forced or threatened to force, “hundreds” of political dissidents into exile, in many cases buying them plane tickets and taking them to the airport at gunpoint.

The U.S. Department of the Treasury announced Tuesday it would eliminate “people-to-people” educational travel to Cuba, an exception to the embargo expanded under President Barack Obama widely abused for tourism.

The vice president of the Communist Party of North Korea met with senior members of the Cuban Castro regime in Havana on Thursday for a “work visit” to discuss “topics of mutual interest,” according to the Cuban Foreign Ministry.

Local media in Guyana reported Wednesday that immigration services there, the U.S. Embassy, and the Red Cross all had no proof that Daniel Llorente, a Cuban dissident imprisoned for a year following a public display of the U.S. flag, was in the country.

A Cuban Evangelical pastor sentenced to two years in prison for homeschooling his children says his family has endured “psychological pressure and a war on behalf of authorities” for refusing to allow the Castro regime to indoctrinate his children into communist ideology.

Daniel Llorente, an independent Cuban dissident who has repeatedly protested the communist regime by waving a U.S. flag in public, told the Cuban-American news outlet Radio Martí this weekend that police forcibly expelled him to Guyana in the dead of night, threatening to “disappear” him if he ever returned.

Leftist leaders in Cuba and Venezuela welcomed Chinese diplomats to their respective capitals this week to discuss support for their regimes amid ongoing economic crises.

Cubans stuck for hours in lines to buy basic goods like eggs, chicken, oil, and soap are sharing photos of their ordeal under the hashtag #LaColaChallenge, or “The Line Challenge.” The challenge is a tongue-in-cheek way to approach a crisis so pervasive that reports surfaced Thursday of mothers “renting” their children to ensure families have enough to eat.

Cuban Interior Commerce Minister Betsy Díaz Velázquez claimed that most Cubans support a brutal new food ration policy that has forced those in major cities to stand on grocery lines for hours, the Cuban interest site CiberCuba reported on Wednesday.

A Venezuelan general who participated in a failed coup d’etat alongside Hugo Chávez in 1992 published a video this week urging soldiers to rise up against dictator Nicolás Maduro and suggested the communist government in Cuba killed Chávez to install Maduro as their puppet.

The communist regime controlling Cuba announced a “rally for inclusion and respect for diversity” Monday after near-universal condemnation of the use of state violence to shut down an LGBT pride parade in Havana.

Cuba’s communist regime sent police to beat and violently haul away some of the estimated 300 people congregating in Havana Saturday for an “illegal” gay pride march, organized after the regime canceled the annual Castro-led “conga against homophobia.”

Cuba’s government-run Radio Reloj website published a commentary Monday referring to American National Security Advisor John Bolton as a “warlock” and “neo-Nazi” for his opposition to the communist Castro regime.

Country music star Tim McGraw canceled a series of concerts in Cuba, Spanish-language media reported Monday, shortly following the Trump administration’s announcement of new policies to keep Americans from engaging in tourism on the island and enriching the repressive Castro regime.

The Cuban communist regime sentenced Evangelical Pastor Ramón Rigal to two years in prison – and his wife Ayda Expósito to a year and half – on Monday for homeschooling their children, less than a week after their arrest for promoting the practice.

The communist government of Cuba once again arrested Pastor Ramón Rigal and wife Ayda Expósito on Wednesday shortly before they had planned to leave the country. Rigal and his wife are at the forefront of an Evangelical movement against allowing the regime to educate their children. 

Cuban police released artist Luis Manuel Otero Alcántara on Monday after arresting him and several others for organizing a footrace to wave American flags around the streets of Havana.