Cuba’s Constitutional Lie: Christians Still Are Targeted with Violence

In 2019, Cuba adopted a new Constitution that states, “The State recognizes, respects, and guarantees religious liberty.”

On paper, it sounds like a commitment – but in reality, it’s meaningless. Despite 59% of the population being Christian, believers and church leaders face violence, arrest, detention, and imprisonment. At the same time, churches across the country operate under persistent government pressure rooted in an atheistic communist system that views independent religious institutions as a potential challenge to the revolution begun by Che Guevara and Fidel Castro in the 1950s.

Take action with us and add your name to the petition: End the Persecution of Christians in Cuba.

Broadly speaking, the Cuban government actively limits religious freedom by systematically refusing to register new churches or allow them to legally acquire spaces for worship. This forces many believers to gather in unregistered house churches, exposing them to fines, property confiscation, or church closures if authorities intervene. Cuba ranks in the top 25 countries in the world for the “most extreme persecution” of Christians according to the World Watch List.

In our latest UPR filing at the U.N. Human Rights Council, one pastor explained that his congregation meets in his garage and in homes across neighborhoods because legal registration is impossible – a reality shared by many Christian communities in Cuba. The government also exerts control through the Cuban Council of Churches (CIC), governed by the Communist Party, which oversees official religious activity and silences evangelical churches that reject its policies. Churches outside the CIC have no legal protection.

Violence against Christians goes unpunished. Last July, a man struck Bishop Jorge Luis Pérez on the back with a machete (fortunately with the blunt side) while he was standing at the pulpit during a service at the Ministerio Pentecostal Rehobot Church. Church members subdued the attacker and called police – but he was released – despite witnesses, and no charges were filed. This sends a chilling message: Attacks on Christians can happen with impunity.

Every Sunday, Berta Soler Fernández and her husband, Ángel Moya Acosta, are detained by Cuba’s National Revolutionary Police and State Security as they step out to attend church. They are forced into vehicles, sometimes separated, and taken to prison cells where they face degrading treatment – mattresses riddled with bedbugs, denial of water, disrobing, intrusive medical exams, and physical abuse. Threatened with legal charges and are never allowed religious materials. This specific weekly pattern of harassment is not unique to them.

Cuba’s constitutional promise of religious freedom is meaningless and likely just a ploy to provide its regime cover while they continue to target independent Christians with harassment, intimidation, and arrest simply for practicing their faith.

Because Cuba fails to uphold even its own guarantees – we’ve launched a multipronged legal advocacy campaign, urging the U.N., U.S., and world leaders to take urgent action to hold Cuba accountable and protect Christians from expanding persecution.

Take action with us and add your name to the petition: End the Persecution of Christians in Cuba.