It is believed that more than 300,000 people have fled Cuba since nationwide protests swept the country on 11 July 2021. Many of them are religious leaders, journalists, human rights defenders and others who were given no choice but to leave the island under intense pressure from the Cuban government. CSW’s Into Exile series tells some of their stories.
Pastor Alaín Toledano Valiente and his wife, Marilín Alayo Correa, led Emanuel Church, one of the largest churches in terms of attendees in the eastern city of Santiago de Cuba for 20 years. As part of the charismatic Protestant Christian network known as the Apostolic Movement, which the government refuses to register, Pastor Toledano, his family and his church were subjected to two decades of intense harassment at the hands of the authorities.
Their church building was demolished on two separate occasions by the government, and Pastor Toledano and his wife were regularly subjected to summonses, interrogations and short term arbitrary detention. Meanwhile, their daughters have been the targets of bullying and violence at school, orchestrated by school officials with the backing of Cuban State Security. In August 2019 he was threatened with imprisonment if his church went ahead with a planned event for women. In October 2021, officials informed him that a criminal case had been prepared against him, meaning he could be arrested and imprisoned at any time.
Pastor Toledano was repeatedly prevented from leaving the country between 2018 and 2022. In July 2019 he was blocked from boarding a flight to attend the United States Ministerial on International Religious Freedom, and was told he was banned from leaving Cuba due to national security concerns. In June 2022, he was stopped again from traveling to the US, this time to attend the Summit of the Americas where he was meant to participate in side events on freedom of religion or belief.
Members of his church were also targeted. On 2 July 2020 Wilberto Quida Sánchez, a leader Pastor Toledano’s church, was intercepted by two State Security agents as he was attempting to deliver a wood-carved pulpit and two cabinets, that he had made, to the church. The State Security agents told Mr Quida Sánchez that he was not permitted to deliver these pieces of furniture to Pastor Toledano’s “illegal church”. They confiscated the items, which Mr. Quida Sánchez had made himself, and fined him 60 Cuban pesos (approximately GBP £19).
When Mr Quida Sánchez showed them documents accrediting him as a carpenter and proving that he had acquired the lumber used to make the furniture legally, the State Security officers told him that his actions were illegal, not because of his job, but due to his support of a ‘counter-revolutionary’ church.
Finally on 25 June 2022, after years of harassment, the pastor was given an ultimatum to leave the island within 30 days or face a long-term prison sentence. The travel ban he had been under was lifted in order to allow him to leave. Pastor Toledano and his family felt that their only option was to flee, taking a flight from Cuba directly to the United States (US) and going into exile in Florida after receiving humanitarian parole from the US government. Two of the pastor’s adult daughters and their children remain in Cuba.
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.