The Spanish propagandist Ana Hurtado Martínez, residing in Havana and the wife of a son of the Castro general Senén Casas Regueiro, published an article this Sunday in the official media Cubadebate titled "Cuba, a dictatorship?" in which she denies that the Cuban political system can be classified as such and attributes that label to the "dominant vision" of Europe and the United States.
"When talking about dictatorship, it is essential to first understand from what perspective this concept is being used. The dominant view in the world—primarily shaped by Europe and the United States—defines political terms according to its own idea of freedom," writes Hurtado in the text.
To support her argument, the Spanish woman cites counterexamples: the imprisonment of the rapper Pablo Hasél in Spain and the naval base that the United States maintains in Guantánamo, which she uses to challenge the freedoms in the "so-called western democracies."
Hurtado defends the unique Cuban party by appealing to the tradition of José Martí and the Cuban Revolutionary Party as a historical precedent for unity, and states that "the fact that there is only one party does not necessarily imply the existence of a dictatorship," because in Cuba "there is a differentiation of functions, there is participation, and freedom of thought is not denied."
He goes so far as to assert that "the Armed Forces and the Ministry of the Interior are nothing more than the people in uniform," and that "no human condition excludes participation in politics in Cuba."
The documented reality contradicts those claims point by point. The Cuban Constitution of 2019 itself states in its Article 5 that the Communist Party is "the superior political leading force of society and the State," without party pluralism or a real separation of powers.
The Cuban Observatory of Human Rights recorded 357 repressive actions just in July 2025 —the month with the highest repression of the year—, including 68 arbitrary detentions. Amnesty International documented that same year tortures, ill-treatment, and forced disappearances of political prisoners on the island.
The profile of Hurtado is inseparable from her insertion into the regime's elite. According to information about her mysterious marriage and ties to the Castro power, the Spanish woman married Lieutenant Colonel Senén Casas, son of General Senén Casas Regueiro —Chief of the General Staff of the FAR, First Deputy Minister of the FAR, and Minister of Transportation, regarded as the right-hand man of Raúl Castro until his death in 1996—. The son grew up connected to the Castro family and was a childhood friend of Alejandro Castro Espín, Raúl's son with the most real power within the regime.
It is not the first time that the Spanish woman has acted as a spokesperson for the regime in official media. In August 2025, she published an article in Telesur about the supposed "petroleum sovereignty" of Cuba, which was contradicted by the regime's own data, revealing a structural dependence on Venezuelan and Mexican imports amid daily blackouts.
One thing is what Hurtado writes from Havana, and another is what Cubans experience: according to the report on political repression and social collapse in Cuba in 2025, the island has endured decades of systematic deterioration of rights and freedoms that no propaganda article can erase.
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