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The Cuban Observatory of Human Rights (OCDH) documented at least 332 repressive actions in Cuba during May 2026, of which 55 were arbitrary detentions and 277 were related to other forms of abuse by the regime.
The report highlights the police targeting of activists' homes as the most frequent violation of the month, with 79 documented cases, followed by abuses against political and common prisoners (58) and disruptions of communications (43).
The provinces with the highest level of repression were Havana, Camagüey, Las Tunas, and Holguín.
At the beginning of the month, Berta Soler Fernández, leader of the Ladies in White, and her husband Ángel Juan Moya Acosta, were detained by State Security agents in the 10th of October municipality as they were leaving the organization's headquarters.
Yoan de la Cruz was also arrested, a young man known for recording one of the first protests on July 11, 2021, and the Colombian journalist Daniel Maldonado, detained for four hours and declared a persona non grata with a prohibition on re-entering the Island.
On May 15, dermatologist Sordey Ballester Horta was detained in Matanzas, allegedly for photographing a poster bearing the slogan "Down with the dictatorship" on Santa Marta street. According to her family, the agents told her that she was "in the wrong place at the wrong time."
On that same day, Amanda Reyes Moreno and Lusmari Reyes Moreno were arrested in Havana, residents of the Dolores community in the San Miguel del Padrón municipality, after peacefully taking to the streets to protest for more than 30 hours without electricity.
Between May 19 and 22, a wave of repression erupted in Holguín, triggered by protests over power outages lasting more than 20 hours. The OCDH identified at least ten detainees, including Eusebio Martínez Matos, Braulio Cuenca, Jenny Moré, Jaime Bosch, and four members of the Thope family. The organization Prisoners Defenders raised the number to 14 new political prisoners resulting from this wave.
On May 20, former political prisoner Mario Alberto Hernández Leyva and activist Fidel Mojena were arrested.
The following day, a new arrest of Erick Alain Chang Padrón was reported, who was transferred to the Villa Marista penal processing center. Guillermo «Coco» Fariñas Hernández, an opposition figure and member of the United Antitotalitarian Forum (FANTU), was also detained.
The OCDH also documented the travel restriction against Dr. Alina Bárbara López Hernández, co-director of the Cuba Section of the Latin American Studies Association, who had an invitation to attend the annual congress of that organization.
The figures for May fall within a sustained repressive escalation throughout 2026: OCDH recorded 390 actions in January, 231 in February, and 277 in March.
In parallel, Prisoners Defenders reported a new historical record of 1,281 political prisoners at the end of May, with 28 new additions that month.
From July 11, 2021, to the end of May 2026, the organization recorded a total of 2,076 political prisoners.
Yaxys Cires, director of strategies at OCDH, was emphatic in his assessment: "The regime is pushing Cuba further away from a scenario of peaceful transition and steering it toward total collapse. The increase in repression and the lack of actions to alleviate the extreme poverty of the people are a clear rejection of the calls for real change in Cuba." The activist also posed a direct question to the authorities: "Why not initiate a process of measurable political, economic, and social changes, open to all sectors of Cuban society and the exile community?"
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