Cuba – Page 2 – FoRB in Full

Prayer, outreach, free expression – the Cuban government won’t tolerate the truth

Posted on 02/06/2025 by cswpress in Cuba, Latin America

A mid-size church located in a population facing significant economic and social challenges organises a weeknight, evening prayer service. Members of the church attend and participate in a series of structured times of prayer. At times they pray silently, at others the pastor leads them in prayer, and in one session they gather around the national flag to pray for the needs facing those in their community and country. Their prayers speak of fundamental needs – for food, for medicine, for a reduction in crime, for the provision of basic services to all.

In another part of the country, the pastor of a church takes steps to address a specific need in his community, which is also enduring hardship. Together with the church leadership, he coordinates a general collection to meet the needs. Members of the church, and many in the larger community, join in the effort and together they are able to put together packages of essential goods to give away to the most desperate.

Neither of these scenarios would attract much notice in many parts of the world. Those who did not share the faith of those involved might think some of the practices a little strange, but not harmful. Not so in Cuba, however, where the simple act of praying for the country – especially in conjunction with the use of the national flag – and any effort by a religious group to meet the acute needs of the population, are met with hostility by the government, which is increasingly threatening religious leaders who organise such activities with criminal charges.

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Every Sunday…

Posted on 21/08/202421/08/2024 by cswpress in Cuba, Latin America

Every Sunday, between 12:30pm and 1pm, Berta Soler Fernández prepares herself. She and her husband, Ángel Moya Acosta step outside their home, a square, two story building painted red, with a light green porch. They have every intention of making their way to a Roman Catholic Church in the Miramar section of Havana, Cuba. The church is named for Saint Rita of Cascia, the patron saint of abuse, loss, peace, desperate cases and lost causes. They will attend Mass and offer up prayers.

Berta is dressed all in white.

Every Sunday, between 12:30pm and 1pm, Berta and Ángel open the door of their home and are met by National Revolutionary Police (NRP) officers and Department of State Security (DSS) agents. Mobs of paramilitary members, some holding signs with offensive and insulting messages, hold up mobile phones as they record the couple’s movements. The two are forced into DSS cars with private license plates and, instead of going to Mass, they are taken to an NRP station. They are ordered to undergo an intrusive medical examination. They refuse because they have not asked for an examination and know that they will not be provided with the results anyway. Those will go to the DSS. Berta and Ángel are then sent to semi-dark prison cells where they will be held until the following morning. They will be taken by car and dropped off near their home, which also serves as the national headquarters for the Ladies in White, a dissident group that has been holding peaceful protests in support of political prisoners since 2003.

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The Cuban Family Code two years on

Posted on 30/07/2024 by cswpress in Cuba, Latin America

22 July 2024 marked two years since the Cuban Family Code was approved by the National Assembly, and, just as CSW warned, the legislation has extended far beyond equality for the LGBT+ community. Although this aspect was the focus of the government’s efforts to encourage a ‘yes’ vote in the public referendum that followed, only a handful of the 474 articles were relevant to that subject.

Implementation of the legislation has pressured entire families into emigrating, to protect their children and not lose parental custody as is a real possibility under Article 191 of the code. The legislation allows for minors to be transferred into the care of the state, if the parents fail to fulfil the responsibilities detailed in Article 138 of the code including ‘inculcating love for the family, for the homeland, respect for its symbols… the norms of social coexistence [based on the ideology of the Cuban Communist Party] and respect for the authorities’. Parents are at risk if they demonstrate behaviour that ‘induces their daughter or son to commit a criminal act…’ (191 (c)) and/or ‘[are responsible for] vicious, corrupt or criminal conduct that is incompatible with the proper exercise of parental responsibility…’ (151 (e)).

At first glance the code may appear harmless, however, it is necessary to understand that all the concepts of homeland, family, respect for patriot symbols, criminal act, and vicious or corrupt conduct are interpreted within the framework of the socialist system on which the 2019 constitution is founded. However, continuing protests, such as that of 11 July 2021 and other smaller scale social uprisings since then,¹ indicate that the population is rejecting the system that the constitution obligates Cuban citizens to defend, even with their life.²

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In the eyes of the Cuban government, leading a church can make you a threat to national security

Posted on 12/06/2024 by cswpress in Cuba, Latin America

Pastors Mario Jorge Travieso Medina and wife Velmis Adriana Mariño González just want to be allowed to visit their daughters in the United States. They long to attend an international conference for leaders affiliated with their religious network. They would very much like to be able to accept an offer, made by friends, to send them on a long overdue and well-deserved holiday. But they are unable to do any of these things, because since 2020, the Cuban government has prohibited them from leaving the island for ‘reasons of national security’.

It would be logical to assume that in order to be considered a threat to national security, the couple must be guilty of criminal activity. In the eyes of the Cuban government, this is so. Though they have never been charged or tried, Pastors Travieso Medina and Mariño González founded and have led an illegal association for over 20 years. Rather than an organised criminal organisation, however, their association is religious in nature, peaceful, and provides much needed humanitarian aid to those in the surrounding community. This is the kind of work that the Cuban government considers to be a threat to national security.

Pastor Travieso Medina graduated with a teaching degree in 1980, after completing his studies in physical education. Ten years later, he decided on a change of career, and took a full-time position as a pastor at a church associated with a legally recognised Protestant Christian denomination. In 1998, he completed post-graduate work via distance learning with a US-based seminary, earning a master’s degree and a doctorate in theology, neither of which was recognized by Cuban institutions.

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The growing cost of standing up for human rights in Nicaragua and Cuba

Posted on 18/03/202418/03/2024 by cswpress in Cuba, Latin America, Nicaragua

Olesia Auxiliadora Muñoz Pavon is a choir director for the Santa Ana Parish in Niquinohomo in Nicaragua’s Masaya Department. Age 52, she has been imprisoned on false charges since 6 April 2023, having previously served a sentence from August 2018 until June 2019 – also on false charges.

Since the middle of January this year, like several others in the Women’s Holistic Penitentiary System commonly known as La Esperanza, Ms Muñoz Pavon has been denied any time outdoors where before she was allowed out once a week.

Her crime? Praying out loud.

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