The National Court of Spain rejected the appeal of a Cuban family to whom the Ministry of the Interior had denied asylum and subsidiary protection, despite the fact that its members reported arrests, police threats, and reprisals that began, according to their account, after they requested medication for one of their children, who is suffering from cancer.
The ruling, issued on July 31, 2026, by the Seventh Section of the Administrative Litigation Chamber, resolved appeals 1980/2022 and 1990/2022, filed by four Cuban citizens against the decisions of the Ministry of the Interior that had denied their applications for international protection.
The family arrived in Spain on September 3, 2019, and sought international protection nine days later from the Provincial Brigade of Immigration and Borders in Madrid, according to the ruling.
The father explained to the Spanish authorities that he resided in Havana and that one of his sons had fallen ill with cancer in 2012. During the treatment, he stated, the medications given to the child caused side effects, prompting him to request alternative medicines to counteract them.
According to his statement, after those claims began, "intimidation and threats, warnings and sanctions" were directed at him and his family. He also claimed that he visited various pharmacies in search of alternative medications, but later they were denied access and accused of disturbing public order.
The man reported that both he and his wife were detained. The woman had been held in custody for three months for disturbing the peace until she was finally acquitted in a trial.
He also reported that another family member was pushed by a sector chief of the police while trying to buy medication at a pharmacy. The fall, according to his testimony, caused severe trauma to his back, which prevented him from walking for several weeks.
One of the most serious incidents reported by the applicant is said to have occurred in March 2019, when, as he stated, a police chief from the Playa municipality allegedly sent criminals to kill him. The father stated that he reported the events to the police and also sought help from health authorities, but received no effective response.
However, in responding to the questions on his asylum application, he indicated that he did not attribute the persecution he experienced to his race, religion, political opinions, membership in a particular social group, or any other reasons expressly protected by Spanish asylum law.
The National Court did not establish persecution based on motives protected by law
The court clarified that, even accepting as a hypothesis that the events described were true, they did not demonstrate that the family had been subjected to persecution in the sense required by Spanish Asylum Law.
The court emphasized that the father did not identify himself as an active political opponent nor claimed to belong to any organization opposed to the Cuban regime.
According to the court's assessment, the incidents described were primarily linked to the social and economic conditions of the country and public order conflicts, but no direct connection was established with persecution motivated by political opposition.
The resolution explicitly acknowledges the shortage of food and medicine in Cuba and that these deficiencies may lead to protests against the government. However, it argues that these circumstances alone are not sufficient for those who protest to be protected under asylum legislation.
The Court also took into account that the woman was ultimately acquitted, a factor that was considered when evaluating the nature of the reported events.
The case arises in a context where Cubans face significant difficulties in obtaining international protection in Spain. For example, in 2023, there were 3,082 applications from Cuban citizens, but only 30 were granted refugee status; an additional 777 were denied and 350 were closed, according to data from the Spanish Commission for Refugee Aid (CEAR).
The trend continued in 2025. By August 31 of that year, Spain had granted asylum to only 36 Cubans and rejected 152 applications, according to official data from the Ministry of the Interior.
However, Spanish authorities have granted protection when they consider the link between persecution and one of the reasons recognized by asylum legislation to be credible. In August 2026, for example, Spain recognized Cuban journalist Luz Escobar as a refugee, along with her family. The resolution deemed the persecution she suffered due to her political opinions and those expressed during her journalistic work to be credible, following years of surveillance, arrests, and other pressures in Cuba.
Tribunal: Cuba is not experiencing an "armed conflict."
The Court also examined whether the family could receive subsidiary protection, which may be granted when there are well-founded reasons to believe that a person would face a real risk of suffering serious harm if returned to their country.
The court concluded that those requirements were also not met and devoted part of its reasoning to determining whether there is a situation of indiscriminate violence in Cuba resulting from an armed conflict.
"Cuba is not engaged in an armed conflict," stated the National Court.
The ruling argued that the Cuban state maintains "a genuine monopoly on organized violence" and that there is no armed response from dissenting sectors, thus ruling out that the situation on the island fits the concept of armed conflict used by European regulations for certain cases of subsidiary protection. The resolution is also published in Spanish legal bases.
Finally, the National Court confirmed the Ministry of the Interior's resolutions that had denied asylum and subsidiary protection to the four Cuban citizens.
The ruling also imposed the costs of the proceedings on the appellants, with a maximum total limit of 1,000 euros, and indicated that the judgment could be appealed to the Supreme Court.
The resolution appears anonymized, which does not allow for establishing the true identity of the family members.
A striking detail of the document is that, in the midst of the analysis on the Cuban family, the ruling refers once to "Colombian citizens," although it immediately goes back to referring to their possible return to Cuba. Everything indicates that this is a material error in the drafting of the ruling.
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