Imagine that you simply lived in a rustic where shortages of food and medicine were a day by day reality; where electricity blackouts were becoming increasingly frequent as a result of poorly managed infrastructure; and where lots of of hundreds of individuals had felt that they had – or in some cases literally been given – no other selection but to go away.
If you’re a Christian, the primary and most natural response would surely be to wish, perhaps at a church service or on social media, and you’ll almost definitely expect your priest or pastor to say the state of the nation of their sermons or addresses.
But in Cuba, where all such issues are very much present and pressing, all of this could be forbidden. Because to wish about such problems, or to encourage others to do the identical, is to acknowledge that they exist, and within the eyes of the federal government, to acknowledge that they exist is to criticise the authorities for his or her resolute failure to take care of them.
Of course, any group which may quite naturally wish to go further still and take practical motion to reply to the needs of their communities, reminiscent of distributing humanitarian aid or sharing food with the homeless – actions that one wouldn’t typically expect anyone of any religion or belief to take exception to – will find themselves similarly instructed to stop.
Last 12 months, for instance, one pastor who leads a registered church related to the government-supported Cuban Council of Churches (CCC) in central Cuba was summoned by two State Security agents to the local Office of Religious Affairs (ORA) where he was questioned by three government officials who expressed concern that his church’s humanitarian work and ‘the pictures he was projecting abroad’ could possibly be misinterpreted by ‘enemies of the Revolution’.
The officials initially asked the pastor politely to stop this work, claiming that it was the responsibility of the federal government and never churches. When the pastor refused he was threatened with the cancellation of his religious credentials, and while he was ultimately permitted to go away, he was warned that there could be ‘consequences’ for his actions.
And that’s only one case, affecting a registered church that will typically enjoy more freedom than the countless others the federal government has refused to register over the past six and a half many years.
In 2024 CSW documented 624 separate cases of violations of the fitting to freedom of faith or belief (FoRB) in Cuba. Almost all cases involved multiple sorts of violations, reminiscent of arbitrary detention, repeat interrogations, threats, harassment and fines, and spiritual groups of every type were affected.
Some children even experienced discrimination in schools due to their religious beliefs. One Protestant pastor told CSW that she was summoned to her child’s primary school by the varsity principal because they were carrying a Bible of their backpack. The principal warned the pastor that regardless that the kid didn’t take the Bible out of their bag during school hours, in the event that they ‘continued to cause problems’ she would have ‘no selection but to take more severe measures, including the possible expulsion of the scholar’.
In one other case the teenage daughter of a Yoruba religious leader was ordered by her school principal to remove her idde, a vibrant bracelet used as a protective amulet. When she refused to accomplish that she was sent home and her parents were summoned to the varsity where they were warned that she could be expelled if she continued to wear the bracelet. Her father identified that his daughter was top of her class, but was nonetheless forced to achieve a compromise that she would wear an amulet that will not be visible to her classmates.
It could also be hard to fathom how such pettiness plays into the federal government’s wider crackdown on FoRB and other fundamental human rights, or how on earth it could justify extending its repression to children, but ultimately all of it comes all the way down to fear; fear that the spread of spiritual belief on the island may lead more people to query the supreme authority the Cuban Communist Party has worked so hard to ascertain, or that it could motivate them to reply to the dire humanitarian needs which have arisen from many years of mismanagement, and maybe even to note who’s liable for such mismanagement.
As long as that fear persists, it can proceed to do all the pieces in its power to stifle any and all perceived criticism of the federal government or its policies, which is precisely why those inside the international community which might be committed to human rights and democracy must in turn stand with and strengthen all those working to rework and improve the fact in Cuba today.
By CSW’s Press & Public Affairs Officer Ellis Heasley. Click here to read CSW’s latest report on Cuba.
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