Six independent religious leaders representing the Christian Alliance of Cuba (ACC) met with representatives of the Delegation of the European Union to Cuba on 25 September to raise concerns related to freedom of religion or belief (FoRB). The group presented their key demands to the Cuban government to uphold FoRB, and requested international support for their efforts.
The group, which included Maridilegnis Carballo, wife of Reverend Lorenzo Rosales Fajardo, and Marta Perdomo, the mother of Jorge and Nadir Perdomo, raised the plight of political prisoners including Reverend Rosales Fajardo, the Perdomo brothers, and the Afro-Cuban Yoruba religious leader Loreto Hernández García, emphasising the dire conditions inside the prisons and the refusal of the authorities to respect the religious rights of political prisoners as stipulated under the Nelson Mandela Rules (The United Nations Standard Minimum Rights for the Treatment of Prisoners). They noted that the families of political prisoners continue to be harassed and subjected to government directed social isolation strategies. Religious leaders have been threatened with the closure of their places of worship if they allow Ms Perdomo, a life-long Baptist Christian, to enter, for example.
The group also highlighted the vulnerable situation of unregistered religious associations and unlegalised places of worship. Changes to the criminal code in recent years have increased the penalties for unauthorised associations and assemblies, and those who lead unregistered groups, or meet in unlegalised locations have increasingly been subjected to onerous fines and threats of imprisonment over the past year.
Many of the members of the ACC, made up of 63 religious leaders, representing more than 8,000 Protestant Christians have been negatively affected by the Cuban government's escalated crackdown on unregistered religious groups and places of worship. Pastors Mario Jorge Travieso Medina and Velmis Adriana Mariño González, a married couple who lead a Christian ministry that the government has denied the right to register in the province of Las Tunas, shared their personal experience of harassment, threats, and arbitrary confiscation and destruction of property over the past 20 years. Pastor Mariño González is currently barred from leaving Cuba, while her husband has been told he can go, but on the condition that he does not return.
‘The European Union Delegation opened its doors during a torrential downpour in the morning hours of 25 September to representatives of the Christian Alliance of Cuba...[to discuss]... the situation of freedom of religion or belief on the island. Religious leaders who have lived through government persecution in their own flesh explained how Cuban government repression functions at all levels of the Church…the meeting was very productive and helped [the EU officials] understand the reality of the churches that the Cuban government refuses to legalise,’ the ACC said in a statement.
CSW Head of Advocacy Anna Lee Stangl said: ‘We commend the European Union Delegation for opening their doors to hear from this group of religious leaders who travelled from across the island to present experiences of serious violations of freedom of religion or belief shared by all too many religious leaders across the island. This was also an important opportunity to hear firsthand from Maridilegnis Carballo and Marta Perdomo, who have been socially isolated by the Cuban government, simply because they have dared to call for freedom of their husband and sons respectively and have denounced the continued violation of their rights. CSW stands with these leaders who continue to call for freedom of religion or belief for all, even as that call puts them in the government’s crosshairs.’