Today, Human Rights Action Group and Democratic Spaces release Cuba and the Authoritarian Nexus: Internal Repression, External Aggression, and Illiberal Partnerships, a comprehensive report documenting Cuba’s role within a global authoritarian network. The report examines the implications of these alliances for peace, security, and democracy in the hemisphere and beyond, and calls on Canada to fundamentally reassess its approach to the Cuban regime.
Authored by Michael Lima, Isabelle Terranova, and Sarah Teich, the report details how Cuba actively supports Russia’s war in Ukraine through military recruitment, hosts Russian and Chinese intelligence operations, and embeds its personnel in Venezuela’s most repressive institutions. It exposes a stark double standard in Canadian foreign policy: Canada has sanctioned over 150 Venezuelan and Nicaraguan officials, yet not a single Cuban official has ever faced a Canadian sanction despite decades of documented torture, arbitrary detention, and political imprisonment. Cuban state propaganda broadcasts freely into Canadian homes while Russian state media is banned.
Drawing on extensive primary sources and new evidence, the report makes ten concrete recommendations for policy reform, including targeted Magnitsky sanctions on Cuban perpetrators, removal of Cubavisión Internacional from Canadian broadcast, genuine engagement with Cuban civil society, and advocacy for political prisoners.
Canada cannot credibly champion democracy in the Americas while exempting Cuba’s regime from the principles it applies everywhere else. This report makes the case for why that must change, and how.
