Following the peaceful protests of 11 July 2021, many Cuban religious leaders and members of communities of faith have joined the largest ongoing wave of emigration since the start of the Cuban Revolution in 1959.
The Cuban government requires that all religious groups and associations obtain legal registration from the Ministry of Justice, but make it almost impossible for them to do so. Since the Revolution, the government has granted legal status to only a handful of groups, and has stripped some, which had a legally recognised presence on the island prior to 1959 of their legal status. As a result, the vast majority of religious groups that did not have a legal presence on the island before 1959 exist outside the law, automatically making them targets of discrimination and harassment.
Over the past two years, Cuba has sent hundreds of dissidents to prison, where for those who hold religious beliefs, their faith often is used by prison guards as a pressure point. The government regularly violates the Nelson Mandela Rules, refusing to allow political prisoners to received religious visits, possess religious materials or participate in religious services inside the prisons. Political prisoners’ religious faith is regularly, publicly ridiculed. Among the growing number of political prisoners are leaders of unregistered religious groups.
One example is that of Lorenzo Rosales Fajardo, pastor of the unregistered Monte de Sion church in Palma Soriano, who was sentenced to seven years in prison after peacefully protesting on 11 July. The pastor has now spent two years in prison where he has been subjected to inhumane treatment including beatings and being put in a punishment cell for days after he refused to stop sharing his faith inside the prison. He has been singled out for humiliation, with prison guards vocally denigrating his religious beliefs. Outside of the prison, his wife Maridilegnis Carballo lost her job as a judge because she was married to a pastor of an unregistered church.
Another example is that of Loreto Hernandez Garcia and his wife Donaida Perez Paseiro, both leaders of the Association of Free Yorubas, an independent Afro-Cuban religious group. Both were imprisoned following the 11 July protests and have been held in maximum security prison since then. Mr Hernandez Garcia has repeatedly been denied critical medical treatment and has been beaten. His brother, Jorge Luis Garcia Perez, a former political prisoner, told CSW that prison guards regularly ridicule and insult Mr. Hernandez Garcia because of his religious beliefs.
Figures of repression
Between January and December 2022, CSW registered 657 cases directly related to violations of freedom of religion or belief (LdRC). Within these cases, Protestant Christians and Roman Catholics reported the most incidents of any religious group.
77% of the reported cases relate to the arbitrary arrest of Roman Catholics, most of whom are dissidents or are related to political prisoners, in order to prevent them from attending religious services. Often, victims suffer several violations, such as being locked up and handcuffed for several hours in a police car in the sun; being held in a cell for eight hours with no place to sit or lie down; and being released in remote locations, far from their forcing them to walk for several hours to get home. Parishioners are normally fined up to $5 US dollars in a country where the minimum wage is approximately $42 USD per month. During the arrests, the victims are beaten, psychologically abused, and violently dragged into patrol cars. Sometimes they are even subjected to ‘acts of repudiation’ – a form of a public humiliation, orchestrated by the regime and carried out by pro-government mobs.
The other 23% of the violations include harassment, confiscation of religious property and materials, denial of religious visas, regulation of foreign travel, discrimination against adults and children, economic fines, physical abuse, vandalism, threats and violence within prisons, and denying the minimum vital services to prisoners with religious backgrounds.
In the context of injustices and growing numbers of serious FoRB violations, religious leaders, worn down by the constant harassment targeting them and their families, have joined thousands of others going into exile. In a few cases, travel restrictions imposed on a specific religious leader or FoRB defender were temporarily lifted by the government on the condition that the individual never return to Cuba. In at least one case, a FoRB defender was stripped of their citizenship before going into exile.
Exile does not always mean freedom
One FoRB defender told CSW that the trauma of round the clock harassment over a period of six months continues to affect him and his family, to the point that he does not want to associate with any Cuban for fear of that they might be a spy. This is a common feeling among exiled Cubans, because State Security agents actively infiltrate exile communities, monitoring and informing the Cuban government of the activities of exiles in their new countries of asylum.
According to the Center for Democracy in the Americas (CDA), in fiscal year 2022 almost 178,000 Cubans arrived in the United States, and it is believed that more than 300,000 have left the country since 11 July 2021. The figure exceeds the combined records of the Mariel exodus in 1980 and the 1994 ‘Balsero Crisis’, the two largest waves of emigration from Cuba in the 20th century. While dissidents, activists and religious leaders are part of this exodus, the vast majority are ordinary Cubans who, following the 11 July crackdown and the imposition of even harsher legislation, see no future for themselves in Cuba.
The cumulative migratory deficit since the beginning of the Cuban Revolution in 1959 until 2015 indicates that 12% of the population has migrated during this period; that is to say that one out of every eight Cubans has chosen to physically leave the territory of Cuba, even though they are often unable to leave behind the horrors that they may have experienced there.
According to the Cuban journalist and author Yoel Suárez, ‘Cuba’s future under socialism has not even been survival, but “sub-vivencia”; a life below what is humanly free and productive… The departure of artists [musicians, poets, novelists, writers, sculptors, philosophers, painters] has greater media visibility, however, there is a leak that nobody talks about; that of Cubans with cardinal trades for the functioning of a society. Cabinet makers, masons, plumbers, turners, simple and essential people who calibrate their dreams towards the north of freedom.’
This week CSW will be telling the stories of some of those who have fled Cuba since the 11 July protests in our new ‘Into Exile’ series. Subscribe below so you receive them all.
FoRB in Full 
Thank you for an eye-opening article. Many on the left will use Cuba as an example of how socialism can be a success yet I’m sure most of them are unaware of this. Very useful.