Report on the Rights to Freedom of Peaceful Assembly and Association in Cuba
Prepared by the Center for a Free Cuba
To the attention of Gina Romero, UN Special Rapporteur on the Rights to Freedom of Peaceful Assembly and Association in Cuba
New York, October 15, 2025
The Universal Declaration of Human Rights affirms in its Article 20:
(1) “Everyone has the right to freedom of peaceful assembly and association.”
(2) “No one may be compelled to belong to an association.”
Also, in its Article 21:
- “Everyone has the right to take part in the government of his country, directly or through freely chosen representatives.”
- “Everyone has the right to equal access to public office in his country.”
- “The will of the people shall be the basis of the authority of public authorities; this shall be expressed in genuine elections held periodically by universal and equal suffrage, by secret ballot, or by other equivalent procedures ensuring the freedom of voting.”
The Cuban state has been a signatory of this declaration since 1948. However, the Cuban government has systematically violated these and all other articles of the declaration against all Cubans, at all times since January 1959.
In an interview with British-American journalist Mehdi Hasan in New York, published by Zeteo on October 4, 2025, Cuban Deputy Foreign Minister Carlos Fernández de Cossío responded to a question about the opportunity in Cuba to organize political parties and run for office. We would like to transcribe a fragment of the conversation:
Mehdi: But the population doesn’t have a choice. The only party that is legal in Cuba is the PCC, the Cuban Communist Party.
Fernández de Cossío: It is not an electoral party. It does not participate in the elections. People elect individuals.
Mehdi: There are no political parties allowed to run for office except those validated by the PCC. You know that.
Fernández de Cossío: Political parties, no. Not even the Communist Party of Cuba is allowed to run for office.
Mehdi: But they vet the candidates. You cannot run for office unless you are approved.
Fernández de Cossío: No.
Mehdi: Anyone can set up a political party and run for office in Cuba? That’s not true.
Fernández de Cossío: Parties do not participate in elections. The electoral law in Cuba is based on individuals and communities. There is no party participation, no money, no machinery for that.
Mehdi: The vast majority of your National Assembly—450 out of 480 members, or whatever it is—are supporters of the Cuban Communist Party. You know that.
Fernández de Cossío: “Vast majority” is perhaps an exaggeration.
Mehdi: My point is that you made the analogy with Britain, France, and Canada—parliamentary hybrids.
Fernández de Cossío: Because you were saying they were not elected (referring to Fidel Castro, Raúl Castro, and Miguel Díaz-Canel).
Mehdi: Hold on. These are two separate arguments. One is that they are not elected by the people, as in the U.S. or France—which is true, we both agree on that. You said it’s like a parliamentary model, but in those parliamentary systems you have parties. People have a choice: do I want the conservatives or the socialists? Do I want the liberals or the progressives? In Cuba, they don’t have that choice.
Fernández de Cossío: Is there any evidence that having political parties implies true representation of the population?
Mehdi: It would give people a choice.
Fernández de Cossío: In practical terms…
Mehdi: Even in Palestine, where you said they must have elections, you can choose between Fatah, Hamas, the PFLP, whoever that is.
Fernández de Cossío: In Cuba, they can choose from many individuals, regardless of what they think.
Mehdi: All who are approved by the Cuban Communist Party.
Fernández de Cossío: You are saying something that is not correct.
Mehdi: So, I can run for office in Cuba and say, “I don’t like the Cuban Communist Party, and I don’t like Miguel Díaz-Canel”?
Fernández de Cossío: You can, you can. And there are people elected who don’t agree with the policies of the Cuban Communist Party, people who have a different opinion.
Mehdi: That’s not true. You are not allowed to run for the National Assembly if you question the system in Cuba—if you question the communist system in Cuba. Isn’t that true?
Fernández de Cossío: It is difficult to get elected, but there are people who have tried to run and didn’t get elected.
Mehdi: The candidates are vetted. You just cannot run for office—you know this.
Fernández de Cossío: No, I don’t know that. You are saying something that is not a representation of Cuba.
Mehdi: All the candidates who run for office in Cuba are vetted by the authorities first. Nobody off the street can just run for office and get elected.
Fernández de Cossío: Yes, they can.
Mehdi: That’s what you’re saying.
Under the current Constitution of the Republic of Cuba, published on April 10, 2019, which ratifies the socialist character of the system, Articles 56 and 204 state:
Article 56. “The rights of assembly, demonstration, and association for lawful and peaceful purposes are recognized by the State, provided that they are exercised with respect for public order and in compliance with the provisions established by law.”
Article 204. “All citizens with legal capacity have the right to participate in the direction of the State, either directly or through their representatives elected to the organs of People’s Power, and to participate, for that purpose, in the manner provided by law, in periodic elections, plebiscites, and popular referendums, which shall be by free, equal, direct, and secret vote. Each voter has the right to only one vote.”
However, the Constitution imposes the irrevocability of socialism and its supremacy through Articles 4 and 5:
Article 4. “The defense of the socialist homeland is the greatest honor and the supreme duty of every Cuban. Treason is the most serious of crimes, and anyone who commits it is subject to the most severe penalties. The socialist system endorsed by this Constitution is irrevocable. Citizens have the right to fight by all means, including armed struggle when no other recourse is possible, against anyone who attempts to overthrow the political, social, and economic order established by this Constitution.”
Article 5. “The Communist Party of Cuba, unique, Martian, Fidelista, Marxist, and Leninist, the organized vanguard of the Cuban nation, sustained by its democratic character and permanent connection with the people, is the highest political force of society and the State. It organizes and guides common efforts in the construction of socialism and the advancement of a communist society. It works to preserve and strengthen the patriotic unity of Cubans and to develop ethical, moral, and civic values.”
Facts demonstrate that the practical result of these limitations on freedom of association and assembly has been the impossibility of legalizing new organizations that do not align with the socialist ideology of the state, and the impossibility for citizens with differing beliefs to be candidates or to participate in the People’s Power Assembly.
Since the founding of the Cuban Committee for Human Rights in the late 1970s, none of the organizations created to promote respect for human, civil, political, social, economic, or cultural rights have been recognized by the Cuban government. On the contrary, their leaders and members have been repressed, imprisoned, exiled, or murdered.
Two relevant cases are Oswaldo Payá Sardiñas, founder and leader of the Christian Liberation Movement (1988), and promoter of the Varela Project (presented in May 2002), which sought constitutional change and respect for essential human rights. The project gathered more than twenty-five thousand citizen signatures, while the Constitution required only ten thousand for a citizen initiative to be presented to the National Assembly of People’s Power.
Payá’s organization leaders were incarcerated in March 2003 and sentenced to long prison terms. He was assassinated by government agents on July 22, 2012, together with Harold Cepero, a young leader of the Christian Liberation Movement.
Laura Pollán Toledo, leader and founder of the Ladies in White—an organization of women whose relatives were imprisoned for political reasons—peacefully marched through the streets of Havana and attended Mass every Sunday. She entered the hospital with a respiratory infection and died a week later on October 14, 2011, while in the custody of State Security in a Havana hospital, where her family was denied an independent medical opinion.
The evidence and testimonies are public, and people in Cuba are increasingly open to discussing violations of the freedoms of assembly and association, as demonstrated during the massive protests of July 11 and 12, 2021.
Article 8(c) of Law 54, On Associations, states that the Ministry of Justice will deny an application to establish an association “when its activities could be harmful to the social interest.”
This law asserts that associations must “coordinate” and maintain contact with government organizations to reach common agreements about the activities the organization plans to carry out.
Of course, associations that do not agree with the policies and socialist ideology of the Cuban government are not approved, as they are considered counterrevolutionary.
One of the main reasons for human rights activists’ detention is their participation in gatherings, whether indoors or on the streets. These activities have not been tolerated by the repressive apparatus since the beginning of the communist system in Cuba.
At international organizations and entities such as the United Nations Human Rights Council, the organizations created by the Cuban government—called “mass organizations”—disguise themselves as non-governmental organizations (NGOs). Genuine NGOs, which are repressed and banned in Cuba, cannot participate. If they manage to gain support from an international NGO to take part in debates and presentations, the government accuses them of being “illegal” organizations manipulated by the United States or other free countries.
Because the regime imposed on the Cuban people since 1959 has atomized public space, preventing the population from debating important national issues and social, political, and economic problems, citizens are only allowed to hear and accept the official policies of the Cuban Communist Party and its mass communication entities and organizations. This has resulted in the destruction of all forms of social dialogue among Cubans and the obstruction of any solution that involves breaking these oppressive rules.
CURRENT TESTIMONIES
From Holguín, Cuba. October 11, 2025.
https://youtu.be/Wvuo7CCeuK4?si=0kam7fa1jX1eDI_x
“My name is Julio César Álvarez Marrero, I live in the Province of Holguín. I have been a human rights activist since 1995-1996, for almost thirty years. In 2002, I joined the Claridad Human Rights Movement, founded in the Municipality of Holguín by brother Lorenzo García Rodríguez, who is now deceased. He was a former political prisoner, unjustly imprisoned for having designed and sought help from the brothers to create this [Claridad membersip] card. For that action, he was sentenced to one year of imprisonment for the crime of ‘illicit economic activity.’
In 2011, brother Lorenzo had already gone into exile, and the movement was restructured. I was named president. For several years, I confronted the regime, I stood up to the dictatorship. We always suffered persecution, harassment, and arrests. They prevented us from meeting, from associating, from holding gatherings where we could discuss our issues. These were peaceful issues, there was no talk of weapons, no talk of violence, there was only talk of the critical situation the opposition and the country were experiencing.
During all that time, I was also a member of the Eastern Democratic Alliance, of the Republican Party, and later was appointed director of this party. And I am currently the coordinator of ACAL, the Cuban Alliance of Action for Freedom, a movement I currently lead.
As part of these movements and parties to which I have belonged over thirty years, we have suffered arrests, days of detention in police stations for exercising the right to freely assemble, the right to freedom of association, the right to freely discuss among brethren about human rights activities in Cuba.
In Cuba, thedictatorship violetas the right to freedom of association. The authorities violate our right under Article 20 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which recognizes the right of human beings to assemble. In Cuba, that is a crime. You can be imprisoned simply for meeting and commenting on the situation in this country.”
From Guantánamo, Cuba. October 11, 2025.
https://youtu.be/YPhlljwjFaQ?si=SXyxwr2vkvm1wV4F
“My name is Rolando Rodríguez Lobaina, director of the Independent Press Agency Palenque Visión, and General Coordinator of the Eastern Democratic Alliance. In more than twenty years of civic struggle, I can’t remember exactly how many times I’ve been detained for simply holding a meeting. In Cuba, a meeting or assembly, any activity that is outside the political agenda or simply critical of the prevailing policy, is a crime defined in criminal law. Anything that doesn’t fit within the socialist nature of this process is illegal. Therefore, I have been detained countless times for holding meetings. And at this moment, now we are living in Cuba, the political police says that three dissidents, critics, journalists, or independent civil society actors cannot be gathered in a house. This is currently the case. It’s a draconian policy, and the dictatorship’s goal is to keep people from functioning, from coordinating, and from developing any alternative strategy proposals that simply seek to defend human rights.
On the other hand, there’s the issue of association. I remember when I was active in Youth for Democracy, the times we went to the Ministry of Justice to register our youth organization. There was never a response, because they don’t allow you to exist either. They say it’s illegal because we’re not registered, the group is not recognized, the authorities don’t accept you, they don’t recognize you as an independent organization. What are independent organizations, the ones they recognize, or rather, the ones that are alleged to be independent but that actually are part of the state? They are the CDRs (Committees for the Defense of the Revolution), the Militias, the FMC (Federation of Cuban Women), the same organizations that fill out pamphlets with reports on, for example, children’s rights, these same organizations like also the CENESEX, led by Mariela Castro, participate in events, they go to the UN to claim that they are Cuba’s civil society, that in Cuba they do support certain proposals, but in fact they are in alignment with the communist government of Cuba. These entities are paramilitary forces that operate to repress citizens like me, or like any others who express a different way of thinking.
For example, to carry out a house search, of which I have been the subject: who are the actors that the political police bring to the house as witnesses? They bring members of the CDRs, people who are members of the CDRs or members of the Cuban Workers’ Central Union (CTC), who act as witnesses because the Penal Code requires that there be a witness, but the ‘witnesses’ are the same people who support the dictatorship.
So, in Cuba, the process of recognizing the opposition has not, in fact, been possible, not even for participating in elections or running as a candidate for the [local or national] Parliament. In this country, there have been various proposals from the emerging civil society, there have been proposals. However, when a person goes and registers, they either erase that registration or, if the individual manages to be accepted as an independent candidate, then State Security will send two patrol cars to their home to prevent the individual from leaving his/her house that day. In addition, the authorities conduct a campaign to discredit and to intimidate the community to prevent people from exercising their right to vote.
Therefore, the authorities don’t recognize you as a member of an organization because you’re illegal, and you can’t meet with others because, I repeat, a meeting implies being arrested, fined, and even jailed. There are thousands of examples in Cuba where people have been arrested for simply being present at a particular house. In the complex context the country is experiencing, three people cannot be gathered in any home. That constitutes a crime. This is how the issue of the right to assembly, or the right to associate, is summed up, and has been summed up during the years of dictatorship”.
From Havana, Cuba. October 14, 2025.
https://youtu.be/ymhqkU3fQbE?si=ldxSvCCVukzKXA5R
“My name is Mario Humberto Hernández Leiva. I am the vice president of the Opposition Movement for a New Republic. The president of the organization is José Díaz Silva. I have been in the opposition for seventeen years and have been imprisoned five times.
I would like to talk about the issue of meetings and assemblies. Here in Cuba, to hold a meeting is considered a crime. I remember that we tried to meet one day, and on that day I was arrested and beaten, I was detained, and I was taken to the police station and even threatened with death.
I remember another day I went to José Díaz Silva’s house, where we were going to meet, and that day they beat me and punched me repeatedly in the eyes. Another time, I went to Guanabacoa to hold a meeting, and State Security was waiting for me. They arrested me, took me 40 kilometers outside of Havana, and left me stranded on the Ocho Vías highway, outside Havana province, where I was forced to sleep exposed to the elements.
Regarding the organizations that exist in Cuba, the Cuban government uses the Federation of Cuban Women, the UJC (Union of Young Communists), the CTC (the Workers Central), and various organizations that are government organizations. They use these organizations to represent the Cuban people at international events like at the UN, but these organizations don’t represent the Cuban people: they are Cuban government organizations. The government uses their members to carry out acts of repudiation against opposition and human rights activists. All these things are done in my country, Cuba.
Regarding the legalization of opposition parties in Cuba, that doesn’t exist. The president of our movement has tried repeatedly to legalize the organization and has never received a response. Just like the beatings they’ve given us. One day, I remember fifteen police officers beating me up and leaving me lying on a highway, practically dead. We went to file a complaint with the Attorney General’s Office and never received a response. In other words, there’s no seriousness in Cuba’s legal system, there’s no response to anything that has to do with human rights activists.”
RECOMMENDATIONS
- Call on the Cuban government to ratify the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights
- Call on the Cuban government to respect Article 20 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights signed by the Cuban state in 1948.
- Call a parallel forum on the Right to Freedom of Peaceful Assembly and Association in Cuba during the 145thSession of the Human Rights Council, so independent civil society groups inside and outside Cuba can present their testimonies.