Tuesday, 18 March 2008
By BosNewsLife News Center
Religious rights have not improved under Raul Castro, new report suggests.
HAVANA, CUBA (BosNewsLife)-- Religious rights of prisoners of conscience
are "systematically violated in Cuban prisons," despite a transfer of
power on the Communist-run island, according to a new report released
Tuesday, March 18, by a major Christian human rights group.
In its report Christian Solidarity Worldwide (CSW) concludes that prison
authorities "regularly deny political prisoners the right to religious
literature including Bibles" and, "The right to meet with a pastor or
priest or to meet together with other prisoners for religious study,
prayer or worship."
CSW released its findings on the fifth anniversary of a massive
government crackdown on dissidents, now referred to by activists as
'Cuba's Black Spring.'
Some 75 members of Cuban civil society, Christian human right defenders,
independent librarians, pro-democracy activists and independent
journalists, were detained, subjected to summary trials, and handed down
lengthy prison sentences.
MONTHS OF INTERVIEWS
CSW told BosNewsLife that its report is partly based on eight months of
interviews with families of prisoners and former detainees. The report
also highlights individual cases, including that of Christian Alfredo
Rodolfo Domínguez Batista who is serving a fourteen-year sentence in the
Holguín Provincial Prison on charges that include "harming the
independence of the Cuban state or its territorial integrity" in the
interest of a foreign state.
Domínguez Batista's wife was quoted as saying that his Bible and all
religious materials were confiscated in the summer of 2007 and have yet
to be returned. "He has also had to repeatedly request access to a
priest, a right which has only been granted every four to six months and
most recently was denied outright," CSW said.
Another "prisoner of conscience, Normando Hernández González has been
denied the right to pastoral visits altogether," according to the CSW
report. "The interviews indicate that similar abuses take place on a
regular basis in high security prisons across the island, suggesting
that it is state policy aiming to psychologically break down political
prisoners," CSW said.
"The practice of denying the basic religious rights of prisoners of
conscience is in direct contravention of the United Nations Standard
Minimum Rules for the Treatment of Prisoners which specifies that the
religious rights of all prisoners must be protected."
PRISON AUTHORITIES
CSW Advocacy Director Tina Lambert told BosNewsLife in s statement that
although her group believes the prisoners are innocent and should be
released immediately, "In the interim we call on the Cuban authorities
to ensure that all prison authorities are trained in and are
implementing the UN Standard Minimum Rules for the Treatment of Prisoners."
Lambert stressed it is "unacceptable that Cuban authorities should seek
to use the religious beliefs of these men and women to attempt to
manipulate them in such a cynical way." The CSW report comes less than a
month after Cuban leader Fidel Castro's nearly five decades of rule
ended when Cuba's National Assembly chose his younger brother Raul to be
the country's new president.
There have been some hopes among Western observers that the could spark
a beginning of "democratic change" in the country. However in his
address to the National Assembly, the 76-year-old Raul Castro proposed
that "we consult Fidel" on important decisions. The 614 members of the
legislative body passed that motion unanimously.
Fidel Castro, who oversaw the detentions five years ago, has
consistently denied the existence of dissidents, describing them instead
as "mercenaries of the United States" trying to harm his Socialist
revolution. He has described reports of human rights abuses as Western
propaganda.(With BosNewsLife Research).
http://www.bosnewslife.com/news/3509-cuba-denies-religious-rights-to-prisoners-rep
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