The Republican congresswoman Nicole Malliotakis denounced on Monday at the United Nations headquarters in New York the human rights violations committed by the Cuban regime and urged member countries to support the United States in its call to hold Havana accountable.
Malliotakis participated in the event "Cuba Libre: The oppression that Havana conceals", organized by the Permanent Mission of the United States to the UN and led by Ambassador Mike Waltz, who invited former political prisoners, activists, and Cuban researchers to present the reality that the regime seeks to silence to the international community.
“I would like to thank Ambassador Waltz for bringing this group together, as it is incredibly important for the world to know the truth about the oppression and hostilities of the Cuban government,” the legislator stated at the beginning of her intervention.
Daughter of a Cuban mother who fled the island in 1959 after Fidel Castro came to power, Malliotakis recounted to the delegates how her family was forever divided: her mother, grandmother, and aunt made it to the United States, but her grandfather was left behind.
“The government came and took, stole that business and their home. And they never saw each other again. That is what the Castro regime did to so many families: not only robbing and oppressing them, but separating them so they would never see each other again, ruining lives, ruining countless lives,” he stated.
The congresswoman denounced that those who remained in Cuba suffered imprisonment, beatings, hunger, and, in some cases, were murdered by their own government, in direct reference to the panelists present at the event, including former political prisoners José Daniel Ferrer and Luis Manuel Otero Alcántara, who participated after being released following approximately five years in prison and having left Cuba in July 2026.
«No government has the right to torture its people, to starve them, especially when one sees the government living in luxury while its citizens are starving», emphasized Malliotakis.
One of the most compelling points of his speech was the criticism of Cuba's presence in the UN Human Rights Council, an organization in which the regime has been a member for six consecutive terms despite having one of the worst records in this area worldwide.
“For six terms, this communist regime has been able to sit on the Human Rights Council while having one of the most atrocious records. I believe it is a tragedy, and it is a tragedy that this institution must correct,” he noted.
The event took place days before the annual voting of the General Assembly regarding the Cuban resolution condemning the U.S. embargo, scheduled for October 27 and 28, 2026, in which more than 554 Cuban activists and organizations have urged democratic governments to vote against or abstain.
The Cuban regime tried by all means to block the meeting. Its permanent representative to the UN, Ernesto Soberón Guzmán, described it as a "political motivation maneuver" and claimed it violated the organization's internal regulations.
On the day of the event, Cuban diplomats staged a repudiation act in the hallways of the venue, shouting at the participants with cries of "terrorists" and "get out of the UN."
Waltz answered straightforwardly: if the Cuban government was bothered by the complaints, it should stop repressing its people.
It is not the first time that Malliotakis has taken a strong stance against Havana. In January 2026, she had already warned that "the Cuban communist regime must disappear", and in February she signed a letter along with other Cuban-American congress members requesting the Department of Justice to formally charge Raúl Castro for the shooting down of the Brothers to the Rescue planes in 1996.
I hope that all of you will join the United States in the defense of a free Cuba, a Cuba that can choose its own government through free and fair elections, with freedom of the press, expression, and assembly, the legislator concluded before the delegates gathered at the UN headquarters.
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