Today is Religious Freedom Day in the United States that observes the Virginia General Assembly's adoption of Thomas Jefferson's Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom on January 16, 1786. It also presents an opportunity to reflect on this fundamental freedom in other places.
In Cuba, under the Castro regime, religious freedom has been under assault for six decades. In May 1961 the dictatorship confiscated private schools and most seminaries to eliminate religion. In September 1961, the Castro regime at gunpoint collected 131 priests, brothers and a bishop, placing them on board the Spanish ship Covadonga and deported them from Cuba. Many of the remaining priests were sent to forced labor camps.
The Castro regime declared itself in atheist state, and openly hostile to religion. Christmas was ended as a holiday in 1969. Following the collapse of the Soviet Union the dictatorship declared itself "secular" and Christmas returned to Cuba in 1997, but restrictions continue.
Today, the Office of Religious Affairs (ORA), an arm of the Central Committee of the Cuban Communist Party, still oversees religious affairs in Cuba, and exists to monitor, hinder and restrict religious activities.
Christian Solidarity Worldwide documents violations of freedom of religion or belief around the world, and they have monitored the situation in Cuba over the years. 2019 was not a good year for religious freedom in Cuba.
Reverend Ramon Rigal, his wife Ayda Expósitoand two children.
For example in April 2019, Reverend Ramon Rigal and his wife Ayda Expósito, of the Church of God in Cuba, were detained in Guantánamo because of their decision to home school their children through an accredited international school. They removed their children from the government-run school because they feared their kids would suffer teacher-led bullying due to their religious beliefs, and a curriculum hostile to religion.
CSW reported that they had 30 minutes’ notice before their April 18th trial, and their lawyer was physically prevented from entering the courtroom. "Reverend Rigal was subsequently transferred to a maximum security prison in Guantánamo Province where he is serving a two-year sentence. The prison does not allow prisoners the possibility of probation and family visits are reduced to once a month. Mrs Expósito was given an 18-month sentence for ‘…acts [impeding] the normal development of minors’ and ‘illicit association’. It was hoped that her sentence might be reduced and that she would be released in October; however, she remains in prison at the time of publication of this report."
Roberto Jesús Quiñones
Cuban police beat and detained Roberto Jesús Quiñones, an independent journalist and attorney, while he was trying to cover the trial as a contributor for CubaNet. He was accused of “resistance” and “disobedience” while detained and fined. On August 7th, a municipal court of the Cuban city of Guantánamo sentenced him to one year in prison for refusal to pay the fine. On September 11, 2019 began serving a one year prison sentence. Roberto is an Amnesty International prisoner of conscience.
Olainis Tejada Beltrán and Yeliney Lescaille Prebal, and their children Liusdan Martínez Lescaille, Daniel Moises
(CSW) also reported on December 23, 2019 reported that Liusdan Martínez Lescaille, a twelve year-old Jewish boy was forbidden by Cuban educational authorities from entering his school while wearing a kippah ( also known as a yarmulke) since December 11, 2019 with the result that he has been prevented from continuing his education. His younger brother, Daniel Moises, has also been subjected to the ban and government authorities threatened to open legal proceedings against his parents (Olainis Tejada Beltrán and Yeliney Lescaille Prebal), jailing them and taking their children away, for "threatening the children’s normal development."
These are just two of the 260 documented cases of Freedom of Religion or Belief (FoRB) violations in Cuba in 2019. Below is the Executive Summary of the Christian Solidarity Worldwide report on Freedom of religion or belief in Cuba. The complete report is available online in PDF format and provides information on specific cases.
Marion Smith in The Wall Street Journal on August 29, 2019 revealed that this is not an accident of Castro’s communist regime, but a feature of communist ideology itself. According to Smith, “[t]he communist hatred of faith is a feature, not a fault. Karl Marx said so himself. Most are familiar with his line that religion is the ‘opium of the people.’ What follows is even more pointed: ‘The abolition of religion as the illusory happiness of the people is the demand for their real happiness.’”
Christian Solidarity Worldwide, January 2020
Freedom of religion or belief in Cuba
Executive Summary
Reports of harassment of religious leaders increased in parallel with the religious groups’ increasing outspokenness and moves towards more unity. A number of major religious leaders have been banned from leaving the country. CSW also received reports of threats and cases of arbitrary detention involving religious leaders and FoRB defenders. A few cases involved false charges being brought against the religious leaders or FoRB defenders. At times the harassment takes a subtler, harder to document form, targeting the children of religious leaders at school, for example.
The Cuban government continues to routinely and systematically violate freedom of religion or belief (FoRB). In 2019 CSW received 260 documented cases of FoRB violations.1 There were negative developments in terms of the government’s overall approach to FoRB, with a new constitution weakening protections for FoRB and the associated right of freedom of conscience. At the same time there were some positive developments within the religious sector itself. Religious groups, especially Protestant Christian groups not affiliated with the Cuban Council of Churches (CCC), and the Roman Catholic Church through the Council of Catholic Bishops, spoke out in an unprecedented way about the new constitution and its potential impact on FoRB. The creation of a new umbrella group for Protestant denominations, as an alternative to the CCC, bringing together the largest Protestant groups on the island, is a show of unity unseen in Cuba since before 1959.
Reports of harassment of religious leaders increased in parallel with the religious groups’ increasing outspokenness and moves towards more unity. A number of major religious leaders have been banned from leaving the country. CSW also received reports of threats and cases of arbitrary detention involving religious leaders and FoRB defenders. A few cases involved false charges being brought against the religious leaders or FoRB defenders. At times the harassment takes a subtler, harder to document form, targeting the children of religious leaders at school, for example.
Religious leaders, both at the local and national levels, who took public stances critical of the new constitution reported that pressure on them remains high. Over the past year some chose to flee the country and seek refuge abroad. Leaders from the Roman Catholic Church and Protestant churches, both those in and outside of the CCC, report frequent visits from and meetings with state security agents and Cuban Communist Party (CCP) officials. These visits and meetings are intended to intimidate the religious leaders and remind them that they are under close surveillance, as well as to influence internal decisions and structures within the different religious groups.
Religious leaders continue to complain about the authority granted to the Office of Religious Affairs (ORA), an arm of the Central Committee of the CCP, over all religious groups and associations. They object to the CCP being given direct and arbitrary authority over all religious activities and internal affairs. The relationship between the director of the Office of Religious Affairs, Caridad del Rosario Diego Bello and her deputy, Sonia García García, and the leadership of the various denominations continues to be characterised by religious leaders as hostile and antagonistic.
Cuba signed both the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) and the International Covenant on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights (ICESCR) in early 2008. Over a decade later, Cuba has yet to make any move to ratify either. The proposed changes to the constitution are a clear indication that the government continues to view religious organisations, and in particular their leaders, as potentially dangerous, to be controlled and contained to the greatest extent possible.
1 High levels of fear about speaking out and a lack of access to secure means of communication mean that the number of reported and documented FoRB violations is most likely only a small percentage of the actual FoRB violations in a given year.
Full report is available in PDF format here.