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The Republican congressman Mario Díaz-Balart condemned this Monday the repression by the Cuban regime against activists of the Asociación Sindical Independiente de Cuba (ASIC), calling it "outrageous" and "brutal" in a post on social media platform X.
"It is outrageous the brutal repression against the brave activists of the ASIC, who were simply exercising their rights to freedom of expression and assembly," wrote the legislator for Florida's FL-26 district, who also called on the International Labour Organization (ILO) and human rights advocates to unequivocally condemn "the growing and atrocious abuses of the Castro regime."
Díaz-Balart's complaint comes days after the regime intensified its repressive operations around Labor Day.
At least 18 activists, journalists, and opponents experienced encirclements, detentions, and communication disruptions last Thursday.
Among those affected, the journalist Ángel Cuza Alfonso was violently arrested on Wednesday in front of his minor daughter in the Playa municipality of Havana by State Security agents.
His ex-wife, Ana Castillo, recounted that the agents "broke his glasses and took him away," and that "they didn't care at all."
The journalist Yoani Sánchez was also prevented from leaving her home in Havana due to police operations, while opponents Mario Alberto Hernández Leyva and Lázaro Antonio Pérez, from the Opposition Movement for a New Republic, were threatened with imprisonment if they went out into the street.
On that same day, the ASIC issued an official statement titled "May 1st in Cuba: Between Repression and Dignity," in which it denounces a systematic attempt to silence the autonomous labor movement through arrests, surveillance, and "direct death threats."
The Secretary General of ASIC, Iván Hernández Carrillo, stated that Cuban workers are "persecuted, blackmailed, and outraged in an increasingly dark context," and that they live "in the midst of rampant inflation where salaries are insufficient to make a living."
"The state does not guarantee employment, and workers live in a state of hunger; they are not allowed to organize in free unions," he added.
The organization cites Case 3271 before the ILO Committee on Freedom of Association, which has urged the Cuban state to ensure the free exercise of union activity.
In its 2026 Report 411, the Committee expressed "deep concern" over the deterioration of the situation and found the Cuban government's account, which describes ASIC as a "subversive group" without presenting evidence, to be not credible.
In July 2025, the ASIC had already demanded from the Cuban regime the freedom of association and the end of the monopoly of the Central Workers' Union of Cuba through a list of ten demands submitted to the National Assembly, without receiving an official response.
Díaz-Balart has reminded on several occasions that the LIBERTAD Act (Helms-Burton) requires the legalization of independent unions as a condition for any easing of sanctions on Cuba, and in February of this year, he stated that the Trump administration would not tolerate violent repression on the island.
Amnesty International documented a total of 3,179 repressive actions and 1,197 political prisoners in Cuba at the end of 2025 in its annual report for April 2026.
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