U.S. imposes new sanctions on Cuban police, officials

Biden administration increasing pressure on communist government

Biden administration announced new sanctions on Friday against Cuba’s national revolutionary police and its top two officials as the U.S. looks to increase pressure on the communist government following this month’s protests on the island.

The Police Nacional Revolcionaria and the agency’s director and deputy director, Oscar Callejas Valcarce and Eddie Sierra Arias, were all targeted in the latest sanctions announced by the Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control.

“The Treasury Department will continue to designate and call out by name those who facilitate the Cuban regime’s involvement in serious human rights abuse,” said Andrea Gacki, director of the Office of Foreign Assets Control. “Today’s action serves to further hold accountable those responsible for suppressing the Cuban people’s calls for freedom and respect for human rights.”

The sanctions were announced as U.S. President Joe Biden was set to meet on Friday afternoon with Cuban American leaders to discuss the situation on the island.

The administration said it is considering a wide range of additional options in response to the protests, including providing internet access to Cubans, and has created a working group to review U.S. remittance policy to ensure that more of the money that Cuban Americans send home makes it directly into the hands of their families without the government taking a cut.

The White House meeting comes almost three weeks after July 11 protests in which thousands of Cubans took to the streets in Havana and other cities to protest shortages, power outages and government policies. They were the first such protests since the 1990s.