Biden finalizes sanctions against Cuba for the repression of protests

The Joe Biden Administration plans to announce this Thursday sanctions against members of the Cuban regime that it considers responsible for human rights abuses carried out by the security forces during the demonstrations that on July 11 took thousands of Cubans to the streets, according to reports. advanced sources of the North American Administration to different media.

The punishment raises the tension between Washington and Havana, which has accused the White House of being behind the largest mobilizations against the Cuban government since the crisis of the 1990s.

The penalties are part of the Global Magnitsky Law, approved by former President Barack Obama in 2012, to penalize countries that violate human rights.

The State Department advanced Wednesday that Washington was considering imposing penalties.

"As ordered by President Joe Biden, we will apply high-impact sanctions to the Cuban authorities who orchestrated these human rights violations," said

Julie Chung,

for the State Department for Latin America.

In a message on Twitter that she signed with her initials, the person in charge of diplomacy for that region also published a photo with the Cuban opponent Rosa María Payá, daughter of the late activist Oswaldo Payá, with whom she said she met to talk “about this an unprecedented moment for the Cuban people and the urgency to take action and hold accountable ”. "They are killing our brothers and sisters on the island," Paya denounced earlier in the week during a hearing in the US Congress.

"We will focus on applying strong sanctions to the regime responsible for the brutal repression," Chung said in another series of tweets.

In the messages posted on the social network, Chung detailed some of the elements that will be key in the actions of the White House with respect to Cuba.

It is intended to create a group to find out how the money that the relatives of Cubans send to the island can be carried "directly into the pocket of the Cuban people."

"We must prevent Cuban remittances from falling into the hands of the oppressors," Chung continued.

For his part, the chairman of the US Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Democrat Bob Menéndez, called on Wednesday for "selective sanctions" against any member of the Cuban law enforcement agencies "an accomplice in perpetuating the repression" on the island, which lasts already more than six decades.