Juno News - March 27, 2026


Life under FIRE in Tel Aviv + Cuba’s BRUTAL Crackdown

Topics
humanitarian aid in Cuba
Mentioned
Sarah Teach Trump Rosa Maria Paya Michael Lima Jose Ferrier
Toronto Star rips off Juno News reporting Ontario’s half-trillion dollar debt is only getting worse

Episode Stats


Length

12 minutes

Words per minute

165.85

Word count

2,142

Sentence count

110

Harmful content

Hate speech

2

sentences flagged


Summary

Summaries generated with gmurro/bart-large-finetuned-filtered-spotify-podcast-summ .

Sarah Teeter is a senior fellow at the McDonnell Laurier Institute and co-founder of the Human Rights Action Group. She is also a regular contributor to the New York Times and the Financial Times. In this episode, Sarah talks about the situation in Cuba and her concerns about the human rights situation on the island.

Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
Hate speech classifications generated with facebook/roberta-hate-speech-dynabench-r4-target .
Topics generated with Qwen2.5-3B-Instruct.
Hosts, guests, and mentioned names generated with spaCy (en_core_web_sm), reconciled against Wikidata.
00:00:00 Our guest today is Sarah Teach.
00:00:06 She is co-founder of the Human Rights Action Group and a senior fellow with
00:00:11 the McDonnell Laurier Institute.
00:00:13 Welcome, Sarah.
00:00:14 Thanks so much for having me.
00:00:15 You happen to be in Tel Aviv at the moment, so if anything happens, we know
00:00:20 you have to run for cover and truly perfectly appreciate that.
00:00:24 What's it like being in Tel Aviv during a war?
00:00:27 Stressful, in a word. Three buildings less than a kilometer away were bombed early this
00:00:34 morning. And there are sirens multiple times a day. It's a lot. No one's really slept here
00:00:41 for the better part of a month. I mean, there's this period where there's
00:00:46 supposed to be a break in the hostilities, a five-day break, as was announced by President
00:00:54 Trump, but it sounds to me like you're still feeling the brunt of Iranian missile attacks.
00:01:01 Absolutely. I mean, I'm not sure if there's been a break in American attacks in Iran,
00:01:05 but I can tell you definitively in Tel Aviv, there is no break.
00:01:10 Let's talk about Cuba because that's your area of interest and expertise.
00:01:15 Obviously, things are changing in Cuba, or at least they appear to be. And the economic situation
00:01:22 there is very grim. There's word that once the Iranian conflict is over, that President Trump
00:01:30 is going to turn his attention to Cuba and quote-unquote take it. What do you make of that?
00:01:37 I hope that it doesn't happen, of course. I mean, certainly the dictatorship in Cuba
00:01:43 needs to go. It's one of the oldest dictatorships in the world. It doesn't receive enough attention
00:01:48 for how brutal and repressive it is.
00:01:51 That being said, external intervention of that sort
00:01:54 would not be at least what I would recommend.
00:01:57 What we've recommended is essentially supporting
00:02:00 the human rights defenders on the island
00:02:02 to take control of their own destiny.
00:02:04 And we see that time and again with mass protests
00:02:07 on the street in Havana,
00:02:08 people chanting for democracy and freedom.
00:02:10 So that would be the route I would go
00:02:12 rather than Trump take over.
00:02:15 As the government of Cuba crushed much of the opposition in that country, whether you mentioned
00:02:22 the protests, to what degree has the administration there really gone after the protesters?
00:02:31 They've cracked down with brutality and with quite a lot of force. They at one point had more
00:02:38 prisoners arbitrarily detained than we saw in Venezuela and Nicaragua combined. So
00:02:43 the repression is is quite vast and very systematic and something that we see in
00:02:47 cuba that's interesting is that we see really the effects of the growing authoritarian nexus which
00:02:53 you know we have all over the world we have cooperations between iran china russia and
00:02:57 what have you and we see a lot of the borrowing of tactics between these regimes and that's you
00:03:03 know really demonstrated in how they've repressed protesters in terms of internet shutdowns mirroring
00:03:08 what we've seen in Iran, firewalls mirroring what we've seen in China, torture in prisons,
00:03:14 and so on. So it's all the same playbook, which is interesting.
00:03:18 Yeah. I've seen some videos online and obviously you really don't know whether something is real
00:03:23 or not. It didn't appear to be fake or AI, but it was supposedly of some Cuban protesters who
00:03:34 basically welcomed a bombing campaign against cuba who said while you're doing this in iran
00:03:42 you know why don't you do this in cuba in order to get rid of the government what do you make
00:03:46 of things like that or do you put any stock in that sort of thing um i haven't seen the video
00:03:52 so it's hard for me to comment on its veracity of course there's a lot of mis and disinformation
00:03:57 floating around the world these days in general um you know i think the devil would be in the
00:04:03 details right i mean it would be one thing for a u.s government or another government to come in
00:04:08 and support protesters in various ways and that may include some sort of military support for
00:04:14 efforts on the ground i'm not sure um that would be a far cry from coming over and taking over the
00:04:19 government and essentially making cuba a like a neo-colonialist project so it's it would really
00:04:26 They depend on how it goes.
00:04:28 I guess what happened in Venezuela was a real turning point in Cuba because obviously they 1.00
00:04:34 were getting a lot of help from the Venezuelan government in the way of oil deliveries and
00:04:38 so forth, energy delivered to the island.
00:04:41 And once the Trump administration arrested a Maduro and took him to New York, that all
00:04:48 ended.
00:04:49 And so I guess now there are questions about what's going on on the island in terms of
00:04:54 their ability to feed themselves.
00:04:56 I know they're getting some help.
00:04:58 There's been some humanitarian aid in Canada, for instance,
00:05:00 and there's been a shipment from Russia, I believe, of oil.
00:05:06 What are you hearing about conditions
00:05:08 on the island right now?
00:05:10 So this is a really interesting topic
00:05:11 in terms of humanitarian aid to Cuba.
00:05:14 And something we've seen a lot of
00:05:16 is that the humanitarian aid
00:05:18 isn't necessarily making its way to the Cuban people.
00:05:21 And recently, Democratic Spaces and Human Rights Action Group, we published a long report on Cuban policy and so on.
00:05:29 And one of our recommendations actually deals with this very fact.
00:05:32 We recommended that Canada put pressure on the Cuban government to legalize independent civil society organizations on the ground in Cuba.
00:05:40 That would be a better place to ensure that aid delivery actually makes its way to those who need it the most.
00:05:47 So that's something I think concrete as well that Canada can do in terms of supporting the human rights defenders on the ground and hopefully make a dent because certainly that aid is essential, but it's not helpful if it doesn't actually make its way to the people.
00:06:01 There was a report recently, again, you have to wonder about the veracity of it, but it suggested that the Cuban government was ready to liberalize its economy to a degree by inviting expats who had made it big outside of Cuba and made money and wanted to invest on the island to be able to do so.
00:06:21 In other words, to be able to own property and run businesses.
00:06:26 Do you believe that's the case?
00:06:27 And to what degree is that a game changer for Cuba and the Cuban people?
00:06:32 I would be very hesitant to be.
00:06:35 I wouldn't be that hopeful about that absent large scale systemic legal changes, because as it stands, independent CSOs, as I said, are not legal in Cuba.
00:06:45 The government still regulates self-employment in virtually every industry.
00:06:52 And then we have military conglomerates running the tourism sector.
00:06:56 So to the extent that money goes into the country, much of it across many industries goes to these military conglomerates that then use it effectively to repress the people.
00:07:06 So more businesses, more money isn't necessarily going to solve the problem without, as I said, widespread legal changes.
00:07:14 and that also includes the criminal code in Cuba, which is currently used to repress political
00:07:19 protesters when you have offenses including things like acting against the public morality and order
00:07:27 and so on. It's a very deeply embedded system. Have you been on the island at all? Have you
00:07:36 interacted with the government with elements of maybe the opposition in Cuba such as it exists?
00:07:43 have you done any of that personally? Yes, of course. And we talk with
00:07:47 Cuban human rights defenders regularly. We've also liaised with Canadian government officials
00:07:52 to try to encourage meetings between the Canadian embassy personnel in Havana
00:07:56 and civil society. Unfortunately, as of now, we have not been successful in that endeavor. And
00:08:02 that's yet another problem and an indicator of this sort of deep seated, repressive system across
00:08:07 all levels of government. What would you like to see happen in Cuba right now?
00:08:13 I would like to see political prisoners released. And interestingly, we did see a number of detainees
00:08:19 released recently in connection with the Vatican, but very few of any of those were political
00:08:24 prisoners. I believe there were a handful that were released on house arrest, so not true freedom and
00:08:29 only a small fraction were political prisoners. So I'd like to see those people be given freedom.
00:08:35 I'd like to see the Canadian government do more as well to support efforts on the ground in Cuba.
00:08:41 Specifically, what would you like the Canadian government to do?
00:08:44 Impose targeted sanctions on officials responsible for gross human rights violations,
00:08:49 ensure that the Canadian embassy is meeting with civil society actors, as Canadian embassies all
00:08:54 over the world are supposed to do. I would like to see the CRTC ban Cuba Vision Internationale,
00:09:01 given that they've banned RT and RT France, and now CubaVision is rebroadcasting RT and RT France
00:09:08 programming. This is something we brought up at the Foreign Interference Inquiry a year and a
00:09:12 half ago. There's a lot that we can do, and none of it requires wholesale legal change in Canada
00:09:19 as well, just using the tools that we have across the board, not just in places like Russia, Ukraine,
00:09:24 or Belarus, but also with respect to Cuba. A lot of Canadians go to Cuba for vacation,
00:09:32 and sometimes you have to wonder who benefits from that. I mean, you mentioned earlier about
00:09:38 the aid that goes to Cuba, you know, ends up in the hands of the administration, the government,
00:09:44 and they decide who gets what, if anything. Are you in favor of Canadians continuing to travel to
00:09:52 Cuba under the conditions that it's in or not? I'm certainly in favor of Canadians understanding
00:10:00 what happens when they travel to cuba as tourists and spend their money on vacations there
00:10:05 i think one of the major problems now is that there's so little awareness of what's going on
00:10:09 on the island that folks are going on vacations and enjoying themselves and not realizing that
00:10:14 a lot of those tourist dollars go to the military conglomerates that that repress the cuban people 1.00
00:10:19 and i would hope and believe that with a little more awareness of that canadians would choose
00:10:23 different places to vacation okay so you are not and when people tell you they're going to cuba
00:10:30 you say well have you considered something else is is that does that conversation happen
00:10:36 um actually it hasn't happened uh not among my circle anyway okay so when's when are you planning
00:10:45 another trip to that country or are you nothing's on the books at the moment no and how do people
00:10:53 find out more about the group that you are part of this humanitarian organization that you co-founded
00:11:00 the human rights action group well we're not on social media simply because we're a small team
00:11:07 we don't have people to do that yet you can go to our website at rightsactiongroup.org i'd also
00:11:13 encourage folks who are interested in learning more to follow democratic spaces that's our
00:11:17 client organization the cuban group that we work closely with and have for many years it's run by
00:11:22 Michael Lima, who's an incredible advocate for the Cuban people. There are all sorts of other
00:11:27 Cuban human rights defenders that are worth following on social media. And otherwise,
00:11:31 Rosa Maria Paya is excellent. Jose Ferrier, who was recently released from prison in Cuba,
00:11:37 and now I believe lives in Miami. So there's a whole host of information out there for people
00:11:43 to find. I wonder if you're on the Cuban government's radar screen, if they're aware
00:11:48 of what you do and whether or not they're monitoring your activities. Have you considered
00:11:53 that? Certainly. I've been blacklisted at this point by China and Russia. So it's not
00:12:00 out of the normal course of my day-to-day to be on the radar of foreign governments.
00:12:06 Okay. Well, thank you very much for coming on the show. We appreciate it. How do people support
00:12:11 the work that you do? Donations are always welcome. We have a donate button on our website.
00:12:17 and also our partner organizations
00:12:20 could also really use the support as well
00:12:22 as I said, Democratic Spaces
00:12:23 and the various others that we work with.
00:12:26 Well, be careful while you're in Tel Aviv.
00:12:28 Thank you so much.
00:12:29 You know that.
00:12:31 Sarah Teach.
00:12:32 And if you're interested in supporting
00:12:34 what we do here at Juno News,
00:12:38 well, you can help out.
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00:12:43 go to junonews.com backslash straight up. That's the name of this show,
00:12:48 junonews.com backslash straight up. It helps us do what we do. Thank you. We'll see you next time.