In the week that the Cuban dictator Miguel Díaz-Canel met Pope Francis at the Vaticanthe non-governmental organization (NGO) Cuban Observatory on Human Rights (OCDH) released a new report in which it pointed to a serious deterioration in the issue of lack of religious freedom in Cuba.
The study was released on Thursday (22), at the headquarters of the Education Council of the University of Madrid, in Spain, by Yaxys Cires, director of Strategies at the OCDH, Leonardo Fernández Otaño, a Cuban doctoral student at the University of Alcalá, and Sumaya Dávila , program manager in the Latin American division of the International Republican Institute in the United States.
The report exposed that the repressions and persecution faced by Christians and religious leaders in the country persist at an alarming rate. According to the report, 68% of Cubans who follow a religion in the country say they are persecuted, threatened or prevented from continuing to live their lives normally because of their faith.
The document pointed out that discrimination for religious reasons in the social and political areas also continues to grow in the Díaz-Canel regime. The data released indicate that the main reasons why an individual who follows a religion in Cuba may suffer persecution, threats or discrimination are to have a political position based on their faith (59%), speak publicly about it (45%), share literature religious (30%) and writing about their faith on social networks (29%).
Among Protestants and Catholics, persecution and threats for “sharing religious literature” were reported by 45% of respondents.
“The answers show the attempt by the authorities [cubanas] to restrict the experience of religiosity to the private sphere”, highlighted the study.
According to the report, more than half of the people who participated in the survey (51%) said that individuals who follow a religion on the island are discriminated against in their jobs, both in the public and private sectors.
Around 55% also said they know of organizations and religious leaders that have had their work impeded or made difficult by Cuban authorities.
Among the greatest difficulties and impediments are the denial of permissions for religious events in public areas (64%), permissions for the repair or creation of religious temples (63%), for the holding of processions (63%) and license for worship in a place of worship (62%).
Also according to the study, the majority of respondents (55%) claimed to be aware of cases in which religious leaders and their families were subjected to some type of violent repression by agents of the Cuban State.
repression bodies
One of the main culprits for these violations, according to the study, is the Office for Religious Affairs of the Cuban Communist Party. According to the data, 68% of respondents pointed to the cabinet as directly responsible for the repression and violation of the rights of leaders and members of religious groups in the country. In addition, 65% stated that they had already been victims of some type of illegal monitoring by the Committees for the Defense of the Revolution.
The OCDH concluded the report by stating that “in Cuba, freedoms of religion or belief are not fully respected or guaranteed”.
According to the OCDH statement, “the Cuban regime continues to use its systems of surveillance and control to limit and prosecute any public expression, especially political, of those who assume a civic commitment in accordance with the values of their faith.”
The OCDH also pointed out that, “in the same way, they are limited to [no país] the action and social influence of religious entities or congregations, especially those that require a greater presence in the public space and in communities”.
worsening trend
In an interview with People’s Gazette, the Director of Strategies at the OCDH, Yaxys Cires, stated that the trend observed by the organization is one of even greater deterioration in the religious freedom index. Cires stated that “religions and churches tend to be what we can call ‘living forces’ in society, some with an important prophetic or denunciation mission”.
“Likewise, the exercise of freedom of conscience is a threat to a totalitarian regime like the Cuban one, which has always wanted to control all facets of a citizen’s life,” he added.
Cires stated that this does not exclude the possibility that relations “between the regime and some ecclesiastical hierarchies” are fluid and that “new spaces for collaboration will open up in the near future in social areas”. According to him, the “regime does not know how and does not want to combat the poverty in which the population lives, [que] according to our data, [atinge] more than 72% of Cuban families. Therefore, they need the support of institutions such as churches, although until now they have not clearly recognized it”.
According to the director, the Díaz-Canel regime monitors all OCDH publications. However, the dictatorship always ignores reports that are published by organizations critical of the human rights situation in Cuba.
“This is a way of not recognizing them as interlocutors. This does not mean that it doesn’t bother them, because in reality they are very uncomfortable, that’s why they order their agents of influence abroad to disqualify our organizations, but nobody believes them anymore”, he explained.
When asked about the importance of raising awareness and debate about religious freedom in Cuba, Cires said that Cubans “are experiencing an anthropological crisis” and only the “values that religions, especially Christianity, provide can help overcome this crisis. situation”.
The director stated that “if there is no possibility for people to know their faith and live it socially, all of Cuban society will be condemned to live without ethical and human references. The vacuum of values generated by six decades of communism needs to be filled by something that gives meaning to people’s lives”.
Cires said in the interview that he does not believe that the release of the report will have a significant impact on Latin America, as few countries on the continent would be willing to openly condemn the situation of Christians and members of other religious groups in Cuba.
According to him, the Cuban regime “has many allies in Latin America” and countries with leftist governments in power “are guided by ideological affinities and not by the obligation to promote and defend human rights beyond their borders”.
He also confirmed that currently in Cuba there are believers of different religions (Evangelicals, Yoruba – religion of African origin – and Catholics) who are imprisoned for political reasons and who are subject to cruel and degrading treatment, starting with the fact that they are unjustly imprisoned and poor health conditions.
Cires also noted that, except for the United States, the international community’s response with concrete actions to condemn the lack of religious freedom in Cuba has been rather weak.
The director stated that the “good relations, for example, between the regime and the Vatican, and with some evangelical organizations within the island, such as the Council of Churches, convey the international perception that religious freedoms in Cuba are respected”, the which is far from reality, according to the director.
According to Cires, the report released this week will be sent to the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights and the United Nations. They will also send the document to the European Parliament, where, according to him, the organization has “allies who are attentive to the human rights situation in Cuba”.
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