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The Cuban Institute for Freedom of Expression and the Press (Iclep) published its Partial Balance 2025 this Friday, which documents 1,188 violations of freedom of expression and the press in Cuba throughout 2025, representing the largest increase in such repression in three years.
The figure represents a 54.7% increase compared to the 768 recorded rapes in 2024, and corresponds to 968 individual entries in the organization's database.
The report indicates that 83.8% of the documented violations affected individuals not identified as journalists, namely activists, opposition members, ordinary citizens, and political prisoners.
"The dictatorship does not accept any discourse other than its own and extends its repressive aura to anyone who dissents," explained Iclep.
The arbitrary detention indicator recorded 386 cases in 2025, including 347 against freedom of expression and 39 against freedom of the press.
Restrictions in the digital space amounted to 41 cases, of which 28 affected citizens and 13 affected journalists.
The average of 1.23 violations per record indicates that in approximately one out of every four incidents, the regime used more than one repressive method simultaneously on the same victim.
Iclep describes this pattern as "the calculated combination of various mechanisms, aimed at producing the maximum deterrent effect with each intervention of the state apparatus."
The report also warns that the data does not reflect the entirety of the events that occurred, due to the restricted access to information imposed by the regime and the fear of reprisals from the victims.
A direct consequence of this repression is forced exile. Cuba, Venezuela, and Nicaragua account for 92.3% of the exiled journalists in Latin America, with Cuba recording 98 journalists abroad from 2018 to 2024.
The report itself acknowledges that "fewer and fewer journalists not affiliated with the state apparatus are practicing from the island," and that "sometimes, even beyond the borders, the harassment has not ceased."
Recent cases illustrate the pattern. In November 2025, the regime harassed 18 collaborators from elTOQUE under accusations of "financial terrorism," publicly exposing personal information of journalists and their families.
This month, content creator Eddy Ceballos was detained under the alleged crime of "invasion of military property," a charge that does not exist in the current Cuban Penal Code.
In the international arena, Cuba ranks 160 out of 180 countries in the 2026 Press Freedom Index by Reporters Without Borders, the second worst in America, only behind Nicaragua.
The Iclep concluded that what has been documented is not a new phenomenon. "The criminal nature of the Cuban regime dates back years. What changes from one calendar year to another is its intensity, its focus, and the instruments it prioritizes at each moment."
The data from the first months of 2026 suggests that the trend is not slowing down. In January, 114 assaults were recorded—67.6% more than in January 2025—and in February, 128 assaults against the press were documented, an increase of 172.3% compared to the same month in the previous year.
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