The director of Citizenship and Freedom, Carolina Barrero, held a meeting with special rapporteur Gina Romero in New York to expose the legal framework that suffocates civic space on the Island.
MADRID, Spain.- The Cuban activist and executive director of Citizenship and Freedom, Carolina Barrero, met this Wednesday in New York with Gina Romero, United Nations Special Rapporteur on the rights to freedom of association and peaceful assembly. The meeting took place in the context of the United Nations General Assembly and was attended by representatives of the Union of Cuban Political Expressions, as well as members of the Center for a Free Cuba, Consorcio Justicia, Freedom House and Human Rights Foundation.
During the meeting, Barrero presented to the rapporteur the central elements of the legal report “The right of association in Cuba: legal architecture of repression”, prepared by Ciudadanía y Libertad. The study documents how the regulations in force on the Island are used as an instrument of political control, severely restricting the possibility of independent organizations existing.
“Cuba is today the country with the most closed civic space in the hemisphere and one of the most restrictive globally,” Citizenship and Freedom stressed before the UN. The organization pointed out that the meeting with the rapporteur constitutes an important advance in the coordination of efforts to make these violations visible and strengthen cooperation with United Nations mechanisms. “This meeting represents another step in the efforts of international coordination to make visible the violations of civil and political rights in Cuba,” Ciudadanía y Libertad published on its Facebook account.
A legal framework that stifles citizen autonomy
According to the report, came out last May, The association registration procedure, established by Law 54/1985, operates as an ideological filter that excludes any autonomous citizen initiative. Furthermore, complementary laws such as Law 80/1996 and Law 88/1999 punish access to international financing, even considering it an act of collaboration with foreign governments. This combination of rules, the document explains, consolidates a legal system that neutralizes any form of organization outside official structures.
Another notable finding is the lack of transparency in the Registry of Associations, to which citizens do not have public access. This institutional opacity reinforces the State’s monopoly over civic life and leaves those who try to organize independently without legal tools. As a result, the majority of recognized organizations in Cuba act subordinated to the official political apparatus, while those who remain on the sidelines face persecution, job threats, and social exclusion.
A long-term strategy to strengthen alliances
Citizenship and Freedom emerged in Madrid in the spring of 2023 in response to the persecution faced by human rights activists and organizations in Cuba and the lack of legal guarantees for their protection. Its work focuses on promoting the rights of association, peaceful assembly and political participation, protected by the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
The organization works especially with vulnerable sectors—including students, farmers, women, relatives of political prisoners, and environmental activists—who are denied the exercise of fundamental rights. Among its objectives are strengthening the capacities of civil society, promoting legal reforms that guarantee basic freedoms and protecting people persecuted for their activism.
The recent presentation of the report in New York is part of an advocacy strategy that seeks to commit democratic governments and international organizations to act against institutionalized repression on the Island. By exposing this scenario to the Office of the Special Rapporteur, the organizations present seek to open new channels of pressure and international support.
Beyond the specific complaint, Ciudadanía y Libertad is committed to consolidating alliances that allow sustaining an agenda of defense of civil rights for Cuban citizens over time. The organization believes that international cooperation should not be limited to symbolic statements, but rather be translated into concrete actions that strengthen the capacity to respond to state repression. In this way, it seeks to ensure that the documented violations do not remain unpunished and that the civic spaces that are currently closed can, in the future, be recovered by Cuban society.
