{"id":28826,"date":"2017-08-09T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2017-08-08T23:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/csw-yeo.1wp.site\/press\/pastor-permitted-to-resume-work-as-church-leader-3666\/"},"modified":"2026-09-23T18:44:37","modified_gmt":"2026-09-23T17:44:37","slug":"pastor-permitted-to-resume-work-as-church-leader-3666","status":"publish","type":"press","link":"https:\/\/www.csw.org.uk\/es\/press\/pastor-permitted-to-resume-work-as-church-leader-3666\/","title":{"rendered":"Pastor permitted to resume work as church leader"},"content":{"rendered":"<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/971aff3790070adbbef6bcb66ee74374.jpg\" alt=\"\"\/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><b>Pastor Ramon Rigal, of the Church of God in Cuba, appeared in court on 8 August, where he was informed that he will be allowed to resume his work as a church leader.<\/b><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><span style=\"background-color: white\">On 25 April, Pastor Rigal was<\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.csw.org.uk\/es\/2017\/08\/03\/presionar\/3655\/article.htm\/\">sentenced<\/a><span style=\"background-color: white\"> to one year in a correctional facility, while his wife was sentenced to one year of house arrest for their decision to home-school their children. They felt that state school teaching emphasised a Marxist-Leninist atheist ideology which regularly demeans Christianity and Christians. Pastor Rigal\u2019s daughter had also reported being bullied at school and punched in the stomach by another student.\u200b<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><span style=\"background-color: white\">The pastor\u2019s sentence was reduced to house arrest on 6 July on the provision that his children return to state school in September.<\/span>He was also <a href=\"https:\/\/www.csw.org.uk\/es\/2017\/08\/03\/presionar\/3655\/article.htm\/\">barred from serving as a church leader<\/a> y <span style=\"background-color: white\">assigned a new job checking for mosquitoes in the water supply of local houses.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><span style=\"background-color: white\">While he will now be allowed to resume his work as a church leader, the pastor and his wife are still under house arrest. The situation regarding their children\u2019s education also remains unresolved despite the fact that they have since been granted scholarships to and enrolled in an online course through an international Christian school.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><span style=\"background-color: white\">CSW\u2019s Senior Advocate for the Americas, Anna Lee Stangl, said, <b><i>\u201cWhile we welcome the news that Pastor Rigal will be able to continue leading his church, he and his wife are still under house arrest. We continue to call for the unwarranted sentences that he and his wife received to be cancelled and for the government to cease its harassment of the family and their church.&#8221;<\/i><\/b><\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><span style=\"color: rgb(33, 33, 33)\">\u200b<\/span>Pastor Ramon Rigal\u2019s case features <span style=\"background-color: white\">in CSW\u2019s <span style=\"color:#212121\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.csw.org.uk\/es\/2017\/08\/02\/report\/3654\/article.htm\/\" target=\"_blank\"><span style=\"background-color: white\">new report<\/span><\/a><span style=\"background-color: white\"><\/span><\/span><span style=\"background-color: white\">on freedom of religion or belief (FoRB) in Cuba, which details several other cases<\/span>in which the family members of church leaders and activists are singled out for harassment and discrimination by the authorities.<\/span><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Pastor Ramon Rigal, of the Church of God in Cuba, appeared in court on 8 August, where he was informed that he will be allowed to resume his work as a church leader.<\/p>","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":42965,"template":"","categories":[],"regions":[140,137],"class_list":["post-28826","press","type-press","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","regions-cuba","regions-latin-america"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.csw.org.uk\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/press\/28826","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.csw.org.uk\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/press"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.csw.org.uk\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/press"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.csw.org.uk\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.csw.org.uk\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/press\/28826\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":39412,"href":"https:\/\/www.csw.org.uk\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/press\/28826\/revisions\/39412"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.csw.org.uk\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/42965"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.csw.org.uk\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=28826"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.csw.org.uk\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=28826"},{"taxonomy":"regions","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.csw.org.uk\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/regions?post=28826"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}