Cuban Pastor Adya Exp\u00f3sito Leyva, who was imprisoned along with her husband Ram\u00f3n Rigal on 16 April 2019, was released from detention on Saturday 29 March.<\/b><\/p>\n\n\n\n
Pastor Exp\u00f3sito Leyva and Reverend Ram\u00f3n Rigal are representatives of the Abundant Faith Ministry International, headquartered and legally registered in Nicaragua. The couple, were imprisoned<\/a> for refusing to send their children to government run schools, where they face severe bullying at the hands of their fellow students and even teachers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Pastor Exp\u00f3sito Leyva confirmed she had been released<\/a> from the women\u2019s prison in Guant\u00e1namo in a phone call to Cuban human rights organisation Instituto Patmos. Adya had served over 11 months of an 18 month sentence for the alleged crime of \u201cOther acts against the normal development of a minor.\u201d According to Insituto Patmos, Pastor Exp\u00f3sito Leyva\u2019s children are currently at home with her, as all children across Cuba have been sent home from school in light of a countrywide lockdown to control the spread of Covid-19.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Reverend Ram\u00f3n Rigal remains in detention in a maximum security prison in Guant\u00e1namo Province, where he is currently serving a two-year sentence.<\/p>\n\n\n\n CSW\u2019s Chief Executive Mervyn Thomas said: \u201cCSW welcomes the release of Pastor Adya Exp\u00f3sito Leyva and calls on the Cuban authorities to ensure that she is able to enjoy her freedom without further harassment. We wish to reiterate that Ms Exp\u00f3sito Leyva should never have been detained in the first place, and we remain deeply concerned at the continued detention of her husband Ram\u00f3n Rigal. We call on the Cuban authorities to facilitate the release of Pastor Rigal immediately and without condition.\u201d<\/i><\/b><\/p>\n\n\n\n The bullying of children at school because of their religious beliefs or those of their parents is relatively common in Cuba. Last year<\/a> CSW received a number of cases involving the children of Christian pastors being denied educational opportunities or singled out because their parents hold \u2018counter-revolutionary ideas.\u2019 In December 2019<\/a> two Jewish schoolboys were prevented from entering their school while wearing the Jewish kippah<\/i>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Mervyn Thomas added: \u201cThe Cuban authorities\u2019 targeting of children on account of their religious beliefs or those of their parents is a deplorable violation of fundamental human rights. We call on the Cuban authorities to ensure that there is no religious discrimination in schools, and that parents are afforded the right to place their children in an education system of their choosing. We also urge the international community to raise the targeting of religious minority children in Cuba with the Cuban authorities at every opportunity.\u201d<\/i><\/b><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Cuban Pastor Ayda Expsito Leyva, who was imprisoned along with her husband Ramn Rigal on 16 April 2019, was released from detention on Saturday 29 March.<\/p>","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":43311,"template":"","categories":[],"regions":[140,137],"class_list":["post-29174","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\/29174","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\/29174\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":39758,"href":"https:\/\/www.csw.org.uk\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/press\/29174\/revisions\/39758"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.csw.org.uk\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/43311"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.csw.org.uk\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=29174"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.csw.org.uk\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=29174"},{"taxonomy":"regions","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.csw.org.uk\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/regions?post=29174"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}