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CSW
World News

Religious freedom violations in Cuba double

From the beginning of 2014 to mid-July CSW recorded 170 separate religious freedom violations.

In comparison to previous years there were just 180 cases in the whole of 2013, 120 in 2012 and 40 in 2011.

One case this year has seen the destruction of a Church in Satiago de Cuba.

The unannounced demolition began at 6am while Pastor Esmir Torreblanca, who is a leader in the church, his wife and their young children, aged two and seven, were sleeping inside.

The decision to bring the building down was put down to the fact the church wasn't properly registered and therefore illegal.

Leaders from the Apostolic Movement, of which the church belonged, are said to be consistently targeted by government officials for harassment, threats and in some cases imprisonment.

CSW's Chief Executive Mervyn Thomas said, "It is distressing to see such a significant and sustained increase in reported violations of religious freedom in Cuba, even as the government claims to be committed to reforms in this area and others.

"As long as the Cuban government refuses to allow all religious organisations to function legally, to register all places of worship, including house churches, and to remove authority over all religious activity from the Central Committee of the Cuban Communist Party, whose decisions are issued arbitrarily and cannot be appealed, there can be no religious freedom in Cuba.

"We call on the United States, on the European Union and other members of the international community, to hold the Cuban government to account and to set measurable benchmarks, including the three mentioned above, in order to judge more accurately any improvement in religious freedom in Cuba."
 
The full report can be found at http://dynamic.csw.org.uk/article.asp?t=report&id=192&rnd=0.8418848

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