WASHINGTON — The Cuban government used the coronavirus pandemic throughout 2020 as a pretext to increase arbitrary arrests, illegal home searches and sham trials, the State Department said Tuesday in a new report on the country’s human rights practices.
The State Department report found that Cuban authorities had charged individuals with “propagating an epidemic” for allegedly violating COVID-19 restrictions, and that the accused were tried and sentenced without legal representation or the ability to defend themselves.
The report cited a nongovernmental organization that documented at least 34 cases in which Cuba invoked COVID-19 violations to arrest government critics. In other cases, Cuba’s Ministry of Justice said that “extraordinary circumstances” warranted expedited trials that, before the pandemic, were reserved for cases involving crimes against state security.
