The regime intensified surveillance, harassment, and restrictions against faith communities, religious leaders, and political prisoners, especially in contexts of social criticism.
MADRID, Spain.- The Cuban Observatory for Human Rights (OCDH) recorded at least 873 violations of the right to religious freedom in Cuba throughout 2025, according to its recently published annual report. The document indicates that the repressive acts were concentrated mainly between March and June, in a context marked by the economic crisis, prolonged blackouts and increasing social unrest.
According to the OCDH, the Cuban authorities maintained systematic surveillance over religious communities, especially those that expressed critical positions regarding the situation in the country or developed social aid actions independently. “The communities especially monitored were those that, from a religious ethic, assumed critical positions in the face of the national crisis or that mobilized to help the people but in ways independent of the regime,” the report highlights.
The organization warns that the documented violations affected independent churches and spiritual movements, religious leaders, priests, lay people, political prisoners and family members, which demonstrates that “the exercise of religious freedom remains subordinated to the interests of political power,” despite the fact that the Cuban Constitution formally recognizes the secular character of the State and freedom of worship.
Among the most relevant episodes, the OCDH mentions the Government’s reaction to the pastoral message Pilgrims of Hopereleased in June by the Cuban Catholic bishops. In that text, the prelates warned about the seriousness of the national crisis and called for “creating a climate… to carry out the structural, social, economic and political changes that Cuba needs.” After its publication, the authorities prevented the entry into the country of international experts invited by a Catholic institution to an academic event.
The report also includes the expulsion of the Mexican priest José Ramírez in December 2025after being denied the renewal of his temporary residence. The religious had rung the bells of the La Milagrosa church, in Havana, as a gesture of support for the neighbors affected by the prolonged blackouts.
Likewise, the OCDH documents summonses, interrogations and harassment by State Security against religious leaders and civil activists, especially in Pinar del Río, in addition to arbitrary impediments for political prisoners to receive religious assistance, including the confiscation of objects of worship in penitentiary centers.
Another focus of concern highlighted in the report is the increase in state pressure on critical Cuban Freemasonry leaders, amid internal conflicts and greater government intervention. The Observatory denounces that these actions violate both religious freedom and freedom of association and the autonomy of fraternal organizations.
The report on religious freedom joins other OCDH reports that document thousands of repressive acts in Cuba during 2025, in a scenario of sustained deterioration of civil and political liberties on the island.
In that sense, it is worth remembering that the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) warned in a report published last November that Cuba, Nicaragua and Venezuela maintain “parallel strategies” of persecution and control over religious communities, through harassment, surveillance, legal manipulation and punishments against leaders and practitioners.
USCIRF stated that on the Island the Communist Party “severely restricts religious practice, particularly to groups that resist State regulation and control.” Leaders of independent Christian and Santeria communities are subject to “repeated summons to police or State Security stations” and “regular threats of imprisonment” for participating in religious services.
The Commission also noted that Cuba is among the countries with the most people imprisoned for reasons related to their faith. Its list of religious freedom victims records “11 victims in Cuba,” although it is not necessarily exhaustive.
This year the regime has shown early on that it continues its censorship of civic activism and religious freedoms in the country. In the recently concluded January, State Security detained and interrogated Christian activists Dagoberto Valdés Hernández and Yoandy Izquierdo Toledo, members of the Center for Coexistence Studies (CEC).
As reported by the CEC on Facebookthe arrest occurred as a result of a meeting between Valdés Hernández and the chargé d’affaires of the United States Embassy in Cuba, Mike Hammer. During the arrest, the lawyer accused Valdés Hernández of “terrorism” and “collaborating with a foreign power that has threatened Cuba with military intervention.”
After the interrogation, both Christian activists were released, although the Study Center highlights in the publication the continuous harassment of the repressive bodies of the Castro dictatorship towards their organization.
