Image taken from the New Herald
On July 7, 2025, the Cuban Minister of Justice publicly denied any state interference in the conflict shaking the masonry Cuban. However, documented facts, the current legal framework, and the testimony of the Freemasons themselves contradict this official version. This analysis by Cubalex examines the legal and political background of the case, revealing how the Cuban state uses the Law of Associations as a tool for surveillance and control.
On July 7, 2025, during the prime-time news broadcast on national television, a interview with Óscar M. Silveira, The current Minister of Justice of Cuba, regarding the conflict between the Freemasons and the State. Throughout the television interview, several statements flatly deny state interference and describe that version as a distortion of reality:
"And on this subject, opinions have arisen, many of them distorted, regarding the relationship that Cuban state agencies maintain with Freemasonry."«
"Therefore, it is false, biased, and malicious to attribute to the Ministry of Justice any interference in the Masonic institution."«
-«…in our case there has not been and will not be any action that interferes, that privileges, that seeks criteria of prevalence for one or the other.»
The conflict that is currently fracturing Cuban Freemasonry stems from the intersection of two dynamics: the state's attempt to control any association—protected by the Law 54/1985 which grants to Ministry of Justice (MINJUS) the “governing function” over its registration and internal affairs—and the desire of the Grand Lodge of Cuba (GLC) to be governed by its own century-old statutes. Minister Óscar M. Silveira himself recalled on television that this law makes his ministry the entity in charge of “ensuring” compliance with association regulations in the country, which in practice grants the State the power to validate or delegitimize the existence of any organization.
Within this context, several specific events triggered the crisis. First, the orderly dismissal of Grand Master Mayker Filema, after a scandal over the theft of funds from the GLC (January 2024) undermined his authority; on May 25, 2025, more than 60% of the delegates of the Upper House approved his removal and elected Juan Alberto Kessel Linares as his successor.
The vote, however, ran headlong into opposition from the Ministry of Justice: the Registry of Associations refused to register the new Grand Master. This refusal, described by the Freemasons themselves as interference that “deliberately blocks the internal democratic process,” became the main point of contention between the government and the fraternity.
Alongside this administrative battle, State Security surrounded the GLC headquarters, prevented meetings, and issued summonses. arrested leaders —including Kessel himself— to intimidate and dissuade them from assuming the office conferred upon them by the Upper House. The police deployment and personal pressure reinforced the perception that the ministerial refusal was not an isolated act, but part of a broader state strategy to limit the autonomy of any group that seeks to make decisions without government approval.
In short, the conflict arose because the majority of Freemasons attempted to exercise their internal right to elect new officers, while the State—shielded by its authority to register the organization and backed by security forces—refused to recognize the result and intervened to support the former leader. The struggle reflects the tension between the Grand Lodge of Cuba's pursuit of self-determination and the centralized control and surveillance imposed by the government on associations in Cuba.
The Ministry of Justice (MINJUS) not only acts as a registry of associations, but also serves as an authority that conditions, inspects, and co-administers their internal operations. Firstly, the Law 54/1985 It establishes a system of prior authorization: the legal existence of any association depends on the Ministry of Justice issuing a certificate of “suitability” and approving its bylaws; without this endorsement, the organization simply cannot be formed. The Ministry can deny registration due to “overlap of objectives” with another entity—an exclusivity criterion—or require a minimum membership and a headquarters that, in practice, only the State can rent, thus blocking critical groups.
Once registered, associations are subject to a “double inspection system”: they must accept the oversight of so-called liaison bodies, state agencies with discretionary powers to conduct periodic inspections, authorize activities and publications, and even participate in the association's internal decisions. Organizations are obligated to tolerate this interference under penalty of administrative or criminal sanctions. These inspections perpetuate a climate of surveillance that compromises autonomy and independence and transforms registered entities into extensions of the state.
Furthermore, the current criminal law It criminalizes those who operate without registration—the crime of “illicit association”—and punishes the receipt of international funds as an “act against State Security,” which has a chilling effect and leaves civil society without legal or financial avenues to organize. This complete discretionary power of the Ministry of Justice (MINJUS) infringes upon freedom of association and contravenes international standards.
Cuban legislation on associations grants the Ministry of Justice (MINJUS) structural control that contradicts the official narrative of neutrality and respect. Although Minister Óscar M. Silveira asserted on state television that MINJUS maintains only a “historical relationship of respect” with Freemasonry and labeled any attribution of interference to it as “false, biased, and malicious,” the facts demonstrate otherwise: the Associations Registry's refusal to register the newly elected Grand Master reveals that the Ministry has decision-making power over the validity of internal processes and can block their renewal if it contravenes state interests.
Furthermore, a investigation A study conducted by Cubalex in conjunction with allied organizations revealed that the system of associations in Cuba is structured on a principle of exclusivity: according to subsection d) of Article 8 of the Regulations of Law 54, the Ministry of Justice (MINJUS) must deny the registration of any group if “another association exists with identical or similar objectives or name.” To apply this clause, founders are required to provide prior certification proving that there are no overlaps; if there are, the registration is automatically blocked. This rule legally prevents the coexistence of independent associations with similar agendas, reinforcing the institutional monopoly and further restricting the right of association.
In practice, this criterion functions as a political filter, and there are documented cases that confirm this. When Cubalex attempted to legalize itself, the Register of Associations he alleged that their purposes were already being addressed by the National Union of Jurists of Cuba and the National Organization of Collective Law Firms, entities created by state decree and not even registered as associations, and therefore recommended decline the applications. The result is a recurring pattern: the Ministry of Justice only legalizes organizations "of interest to the government" and uses the alleged duplication of objectives to exclude those that could act independently or critically.
This logic clashes with the televised statement by Minister Óscar M. Silveira—"there are 2,261 associations, of which 1,141 are fraternal and a significant number are Masonic lodges"—since his own discourse acknowledges that several organizations coexist with very similar fraternal or Masonic objectives. Strictly speaking, many lodges and brotherhoods were founded before 1985 and were "protected" by their antiquity; however, the coexistence of hundreds of entities with the same fraternal character reveals that subsection d) is not applied with the same severity to all. On the contrary, it is applied selectively and serves to block the entry of new NGOs—especially human rights organizations—while tolerating or promoting the proliferation of related or long-standing associations.
If more than half of the national registry are "fraternal," one might ask how many have been directly promoted by the State or depend on it for their operation, and why the same criterion of exclusivity did not prevent their registration. The conclusion of Cubalex The Ministry of Justice uses the "coincidence of objectives" rule at its discretion to protect civic space and, at the same time, display an inflated number of associations that reinforces an official discourse of plurality which, in light of the facts, is contradictory.
Chapter VI of the Regulations of Law 54 (Resolution 53/1986) allows each national association to create provincial and municipal branches. These branches acquire their own legal personality (Art. 32) after approval by the Department of Associations and are subject to the same internal statutes and, in addition, to inspections by the Ministry of Justice (Art. 34). Since they appear as autonomous “associations” in the registry, the branches are included in the overall count presented by the minister—2,261 entities, of which 1,141 are fraternal or Masonic—even though, in practice, many merely replicate the territorial structure of a single parent organization. The result is an inflated number that projects an image of plurality without reflecting a real increase in independent initiatives.
Minister Óscar M. Silveira insists that the Ministry of Justice (MINJUS) "has maintained strict respect—without interference, favoritism, or privileges—toward Freemasonry and other associations." However, the Ministry itself Law 54 The law he invokes contains mechanisms for direct intervention that refute that account. Article 13 expressly empowers state bodies with which each association maintains “coordination and collaboration relationships” to conduct periodic inspections to verify compliance with its internal regulations, and Article 19 grants the Ministry the power to impose administrative sanctions on the entity or its directors when legal or statutory violations are found. In other words, the law does not describe a merely regulatory and respectful authority, but one with the power to sanction and maintain constant oversight of the internal workings of any organization.
The headline also presents the Masonic dispute as an «internal matter» that the Freemasons themselves must resolve, emphasizing that their sixteen books of internal legislation are sufficient to settle any differences. However, Law 54 obliges all associations to maintain “relations” with a designated state body (Articles 11-15) and stipulates that the Ministry may transfer these relations or decide them when there are doubts (Article 12). This subordination eliminates the full autonomy that the minister proclaims and, on the contrary, legitimizes administrative intervention in processes as sensitive as the validation of internal elections—precisely the point that triggered the crisis with the Grand Lodge.
Finally, while the minister denies any "interference" and merely alludes to "discussions" to facilitate understanding, he acknowledges that such meetings can be convened by his own office "in order to guarantee greater clarity." The law supports this practice: it grants the Ministry the authority to advise, inspect, and monitor the activities of provincial registries and, by extension, of registered associations. Far from contradicting the letter of the law, the actions denounced by Freemasonry illustrate the breadth of this power; what is contradictory is the official discourse that reduces it to a function of "respectful accompaniment" when current legislation unambiguously describes a system of supervision and sanctions.
Article 67 of Regulation (Res. 53/1986) obliges every association to keep a Register of Associates with the “full name, identity card number, citizenship, nationality, profession, and address” of each member; in addition, they must keep the minute books and the income and expense ledgers. This obligation is not merely accounting-related: the regulations themselves mandate that these books be available to the authorities at all times. Officials from the Ministry of Justice or the relevant body may enter the premises, examine the books and any other documents whenever they conduct an inspection.
The scope of oversight is further broadened in Articles 27-30: the “rules of relations” must stipulate the reciprocal exchange of information, the periodic submission of activity reports, and the obligation to provide prior notification of each meeting; the presence of a state representative with voice at all sessions is even permitted. In practice, this framework transforms the registration of an association into a system of continuous surveillance of its internal affairs and—by extension—the private lives of its members.
Cuban Freemasonry illustrates the risks: membership lists and personal data have facilitated targeted summonses, interrogations, and arrests of leaders who question the interference of the Ministry of Justice. This occurred, for example, with Juan A. Kessel Linares and Víctor Bravo Cabañas, arrested on July 4, 2025, after being summoned by State Security, or with the arrest warnings issued to Kessel Linares two weeks earlier. When the State possesses the complete list of members, it can quickly identify dissidents and exert pressure on them or their families, as the Freemasons denounce.
From the perspective of a democratic society and international standards (art. 22 of IDPCP and art. 16 of the ACHRAny restriction on the right of association must serve a legitimate purpose, be necessary, and proportionate. Requiring all entities to hand over sensitive data about their members without specific cause and allowing unlimited inspections goes far beyond what is necessary to prevent crime or guarantee financial transparency. This is a preventive surveillance mechanism that opens the door to the repressive use of information, as evidenced by the current conflict within the Grand Lodge: the very inspectors who control the records end up endorsing or rejecting the leaders based on their political affiliation.
In short, Law 54 already granted the Ministry inspection and sanctioning powers, but the Regulations detail and expand them, creating a structure that exposes each member—with name, address, and identity number—to the constant scrutiny of the state apparatus. Far from being a harmless administrative requirement, this architecture transforms the association registry into a database for repression; a model incompatible with the minimum guarantees of privacy and freedom of association that define a democratic order.
The key findings of the analysis show a consistent pattern of state interference that contradicts the narrative of neutrality disseminated by Minister Óscar M. Silveira:
–First, The legal framework grants the Ministry of Justice (MINJUS) meticulous control over the internal affairs of every association. The regulations require it to maintain a Register of Associates with sensitive personal data already displaying it at each inspection; empowers its officials to enter the premises, review books and draw up periodic inspection reports; and orders that the rules of relations These mechanisms include information sharing, advance notice of meetings, and the possibility for a state representative to attend each session with voice but no vote. The administrative dissolution of the organization is even foreseen should the Ministry of Justice deem it appropriate. These mechanisms go far beyond simple registration and ensure constant oversight.
–Second, The Ministry of Justice (MINJUS) arbitrarily applies the "exclusivity criterion": it can deny registration if another entity with similar objectives already exists, but it uses this rule to block independent NGOs while tolerating hundreds of lodges and other fraternities with identical aims. The official statistics—2,261 associations, more than half of them fraternal—are inflated by counting as "autonomous entities" subsidiaries that depend on the same parent organization, projecting plurality where in reality there is a proliferation of structures aligned with the State.
–Third, In the Masonic crisis, the Ministry of Justice (MINJUS) moved from abstract powers to concrete intervention: the Registry of Associations refused to recognize the democratically elected Grand Master, Juan A. Kessel Linares, triggering the internal conflict; shortly afterward, Kessel and other leaders were arrested or summoned by State Security, demonstrating that registry information facilitates selective persecution. The “meetings” that the minister presents as mere conversations In practice, these are supervisory acts authorized by law.
In light of these facts, it is the minister himself who is distorting the truth. While asserting that the accusation of interference is “false, biased, and malicious,” and concluding with the phrase “it is false, it is biased, it is malicious,” he omits the regulatory articles that demonstrate the Ministry of Justice's authority to inspect, sanction, and dissolve associations; he ignores the official refusal to register the elected leadership and remains silent about the involvement of the political police. What is being distorted is the very nature of the relationship between the State and associations: it is presented as one of “strict respect” when current regulations establish a system of oversight and sanctioning power that is already being exercised against the Grand Lodge.
The purpose of this distortion is political: to legitimize, in the eyes of the public and the international community, a control structure incompatible with democratic standards, and to shield the government from accusations of restricting freedom of association. Furthermore, when this distortion originates directly from a high-ranking official—as in this case, the Minister of Justice—it takes on the character of institutional disinformation.
Various international bodies, such as the UN Human Rights Committee and the IACHR Special Rapporteur for Freedom of Expression, have warned that public officials have a heightened duty of truthfulness and transparency, especially when speaking in the media or on official social networks. The use of statements False or misleading information from state authorities not only erodes public trust, but also normalizes arbitrariness, deliberately misinforms the public, and hinders accountability.
The case of Freemasonry reveals a systematic pattern of state control that exceeds the bounds of legislation and distorts legality in the name of obedience. Documenting these dynamics is key not only to dismantling the official narrative but also to protecting other civil society organizations facing similar obstacles. Cubalex reaffirms its commitment to defending freedom of association as an indispensable pillar of any genuine democracy.