UK Foreign Secretary writes to imprisoned Protestant pastor

The UK Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs, David Lammy MP, has written to imprisoned Cuban Protestant pastor Lorenzo Rosales Fajardo to express the UK government’s continued commitment to advocating for the pastor’s release.

In a letter dated 10 December, to mark Human Rights Day, the Foreign Secretary writes: ‘We stand in solidarity with you and so many other Cubans who are victims of widespread repression and urge the Cuban authorities to release you and all other political prisoners, immediately and unconditionally. The UK will continue to monitor the human rights of all in Cuba, in line with the guarantees provided in the Cuban Constitution.’

Pastor Rosales Fajardo was violently arrested after participating in peaceful protests that took place across Cuba on 11 July 2021. He was tried and convicted of charges of ‘disrespect’, ‘assault’, ‘criminal incitement’ and ‘public disorder’ on 20 and 21 December 2021.

In May 2022 he and his family were informed that he had been sentenced to seven years in prison, which was one year less than the eight-year sentence that was initially communicated in a document sent from the Permanent Mission of Cuba in Geneva to the United Nations (UN). He was initially held in Boniato Maximum Security Prison, but in early 2023 his family reported that he had been moved to a minimum-security prison closer to their home.

In February 2024 the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention adopted the opinion that Pastor Rosales Fajardo’s detention was arbitrary.

CSW’s Director of Advocacy Anna Lee Stangl said: ‘CSW welcomes this expression of solidarity from the UK Foreign Secretary to Pastor Lorenzo Rosales Fajardo, who has now served nearly three and a half years of a completely unjustified seven-year sentence. We continue to call for his immediate and unconditional release, and for that of all other political prisoners in Cuba, and urge members of the international community to hold the Cuban government to account for the manner in which it has brazenly and arbitrarily detained this man and countless others who have bravely stood up for human rights and democracy on the island.’