Religious freedom in Cuba

Executive Summary

Over the past twelve months there have been some subtle shifts in the government’s relationship with religious groups. In some ways conditions appear to have improved. A new ongoing dialogue with the hierarchy of the Roman Catholic Church, and the registration and legalisation of some former house churches, give some reason for hope that the government has turned over a new leaf. Church leaders representing all denominations in the country, however, have greeted these new developments with a degree of scepticism and are urging the outside world to be cautious in its interpretation, saying, in the words of one pastor, “Religious repression has taken a different form. It is more subtle now and more refined and probably more effective.”

The government appears to have moved away from potentially higher profile forms of repression, such as threatening to shut down or destroy churches, and is now focusing on more targeted pressure on church leaders. Church leaders from the Roman Catholic Church and Protestant churches, both those belonging to and outside of the Cuban Council of Churches (CCC), report frequent visits from and meetings with state Security Agents and Cuban Communist Party (CCP) officials. These visits and meetings seem to have the objective of intimidating the church leaders and making them aware that they are under close surveillance. There is wide agreement among church leaders of all denominations that the situation differs significantly for the Apostolic Movement, which has been a target of direct and severe persecution.

Church leaders continue to complain about the authority granted to the Office of Religious Affairs, an arm of the Central Committee of the CCP, over all religious groups and associations. They object, virtually unanimously, to the Communist Party being given direct authority over all religious activities and business, rather than officially bringing these issues under government oversight. The consistently antagonistic relationship between the director of the Office of Religious Affairs, Caridad Diego, and the leadership of the various denominations has left religious communities with the impression that the office exists solely to monitor, hinder and restrict the activities of religious groups. Over the past year, the office has refused authorisation for a number of religious activities and, church leaders suspect, is also behind the authorities’ failure over the past year to grant exit visas to a number of church leaders who have never been denied permission to leave the country in the past.

One apparent improvement, announced in September 2009, was the government’s authorisation of Protestant and Roman Catholic religious services in Cuban prisons. Feedback on the implementation of this new policy, however, has been mixed, with many church leaders pointing out that it has not been applied uniformly in prisons across Cuba and that not all prisoners are allowed to participate. There is no provision for non-Christian religious groups, including Afro-Cuban groups, to provide or participate in their own services.

Cuba signed both the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) and the International Covenant on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights (ICESCR) in early 2008. Two and a half years later Cuba has yet to make any move to ratify either. According to church leaders representing the full spectrum of denominations in Cuba, the reforms that have taken place have been mostly cosmetic, aimed at improving Cuba’s image in the outside world. All of this indicates that rather than moving towards a more open society, the government under the leadership of Raul Castro still views religious organisations, and in particular their leaders, as potentially dangerous; and as a result continues to exert as much control as possible over their activities.

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