A Moroccan journalist associated with an American think tank was detained during a routine transit flight through Havana because of the Israeli stamps in his passport.
The Philadelphia-based Middle East Forum (MEF) condemned the arbitrary detention, interrogation and forced deportation of Amine Ayoub, a fellow in the organization who was held for 32 hours without food or water before being sent back to Morocco.
The incident began when Ayoub arrived at José Martí International Airport via France en route to the Bahamas for a family reunion.
Cuban authorities subjected him to a nearly five-hour interrogation focused obsessively on Israeli visa stamps, seized his phone under false pretenses of “checking reservations,” and ultimately denied his onward travel without explanation or documentation, the organization said.
“I didn’t know Cuba was going to hate me and treat me like this,” Ayoub told Ynet website last Wednesday. “When I landed, they treated me like a terrorist.”
Eventually, he was allowed to visit Cuba for a few days, but when he went to take the flight to the Bahamas where he was to meet with his Houston-based brother, Ayoub was prevented from doing so even though he had a valid visa.
Confined to a stark holding room with metal chairs, he was kept under constant surveillance, escorted by guards even to the bathroom, and given neither food nor water throughout his ordeal before he was deported on a flight back to Morocco by the chief of police.
“The Cuban regime’s savage treatment of Amine Ayoub exposes the depths of its authoritarian malice and its willingness to export Middle Eastern extremism to the Western Hemisphere,” MEF Executive Director Gregg Roman said in a statement on Thursday. “This despotic government deliberately avoided creating any official record of Mr. Ayoub’s detention—a calculated attempt to intimidate advocates for truth and democracy while evading accountability.”
Since severing diplomatic relations with Israel in 1973, Cuba has positioned itself as a stalwart ally of Palestinian terrorist groups and the Iranian regime and its terrorist proxies.
“That a journalist can be detained, interrogated and deported simply for bearing Israeli visa stamps reveals how deeply Cuba has internalized the pathologies of its Middle Eastern patrons,” Roman said.
“This is a dangerous time,” Ayoub said. “But we have to talk about the truth and against evil.”
Morocco is one four countries that made peace with Israel under the landmark 2020 Abraham Accords reached during the first Trump administration.
