SOCIALIST STATE NO PARADISE: NEW LAW FORCES CLOSURE OF AT LEAST THREE CUBAN HOUSE CHURCHES

By Jeremy Reynalds
Special Correspondent for ASSIST News Service 

SURREY, ENGLAND (ANS) - Jan 9/06 - A British-based human rights organization has learned that at least three Protestant churches have been forcibly closed in Cuba after harsh legislation on house churches was announced in 2005.

Christian Solidarity Worldwide (CSW) reported that two of the churches, in the western provinces of Guantanamo and Holguin, were forcibly closed. The first was confiscated by local authorities in August and the other threatened with demolition at the end of last year. 

A third church, in a suburb of Havana, was demolished at the end of last year while church members looked on. To justify their closure, CSW reported in a news release, all of the churches were targeted by the authorities as being “illegal constructions.” 

The new legislation, Directive 43 and Resolution 46, was announced in April in the wake of Pope John Paul II's funeral, CSW reported, and required all house churches to register with the authorities. 

Church leaders expressed their concern at the time that the registration process was so complicated as to be practically impossible. CSW reported that many church leaders believed this was really an attempt to shut down the house church movement across Cuba.

CSW stated that the organization is very concerned that the three church closures seem to suggest that a new wave of repression of religious freedom could be on the horizon. It is possible that additional churches have also met with a similar fate, CSW reported, but because of security concerns regarding communication in Cuba, this has been impossible to verify. 

Stuart Windsor, National Director of CSW, said in a news release, “We learned of these church closures, confiscation and demolition with deep concern. We are calling on the international community to strongly discourage the Cuban government from taking any more measures that would restrict the rights of the Cuban people to meet and worship together. In addition, we call upon the Cuban government to return those buildings that have already been confiscated, allow for the re-opening of those that have been shut down, and authorise the reconstruction of the church that has already been demolished.”

One of the major problems faced by Cuban churches, CSW commented, is the difficulty of building, restoring and maintaining religious buildings and places of worship where they can hold services. Current Cuban government policy allows only officially recognized church services in buildings that were constructed prior to the 1959 Revolution. 

The construction of a new church, CSW reported, as well as enlarging or renovating existing churches, requires government authorization, which is often given only arbitrarily - if at all. Churches belonging to the government- sanctioned, Cuban Council of Churches are an exception and are often readily granted permission to renovate and build.

Because many churches have grown in the last decade, CSW reported, most existing church buildings are too small to accommodate all their members. The logical alternative for many of these churches has been the establishment of house churches which explains, in part, the expansion of the house church movement across Cuba. There are now an estimated 10,000 - 15,000 house churches across the island, with each accommodating somewhere between 30 and 200 worshipers meeting weekly.

Existing buildings (those built prior to the Revolution), CSW reported, are often over 100 years old and desperately in need of renovation and repair, but official permission is hard to get. However, CSW reported, many churches have gone ahead without seeking permission, renovating and expanding the church facilities as much as finances allow until they are explicitly prohibited from doing so by the government. 

Some churches have also built new structures, another practice that has been tolerated by the government until now, CSW stated. However, churches are in a constantly precarious legal position, and are vulnerable to the now very present threat of crippling fines, closure or even demolition.

Monday, August 30, 2004 

DETAINED CUBAN CHRISTIAN CONDEMNS U.S. BISHOPS FOR CRITICIZING EMBARGO

Blind lawyer urges U.S. and E.U. to increase pressure on Castro's government

By: Stefan J. Bos
Special Correspondent, ASSIST News Service 

HAVANA, CUBA (ANS) - A blind Cuban Christian dissident, who is under house arrest for opposing the Communist government of Fidel Castro, has condemned the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) for proposing an end to the embargo against Cuba as well as a relaxation of travel and other restrictions, ASSIST News Service (ANS) monitored Monday, August 30. (Pictured: Blind Christian Cuban Dissident Juan Carlos Gonzales Leiva).

Dissident Juan Carlos Gonzales Leiva, a 39-year old lawyer and president of the Cuban Foundation of Human Rights, said changing the U.S. policy toward Cuba will "not help to bring about solutions or improvements" for Cubans. 

"American business has not brought about any freedom in China. We cannot confuse freedom with the fish of the Israelite’s during their slavery in Egypt," he wrote to Bishop John H. Ricard, Chair of the USCCB Internacional Policy Committee, in a letter, obtained by ANS.

Last month, Bishop Ricard urged the U.S. Congress to reconsider recent restrictions on travel from America to Cuba which he said "will serve only to exacerbate the situation" on the island. 

"ENCOURAGING DEMOCRATIZATION"

"We believe the goals of improving the lot of the Cuban people and encouraging the democratization of the governance of Cuba are best accomplished through more rather than less contact between the Cuban and American peoples," he added. Several large Cuban denominations have also criticized the embargo, although some of them are believed to be close to the government. 

However Gonzales Leiva said "freedom and democracy for Cuba will not come to us from American citizens or by means of people to people contacts." He told the bishop that freedom can only come be achieved within the island. "Our own strengths and our own weaknesses must take each other on, and in the end, the former will prevail."

Gonzales Leiva stressed he wrote his letter with wishes of "blessings of peace, love, and hope in the glorious name of our Lord, Jesus Christ," altough he disagreed with the bishop's approach to human rights violations.

"BISHOPS "MISTAKEN"

"I appreciate your (efforts) in the name of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, although in my opinion, they are completely mistaken." (Pictured: Cuban leader Fidel Castro speaking to the media. His government objects using the word "dissidents" to describe those detained for criticizing Castro's policies).

He said 114 human rights activists have "not only expressed" their "total backing and support of the U.S. embargo against the Cuban government but also requested the stiffening and the hardening of the policy of the European Union and other countries of the international community toward Cuba."

Gonzales Leiva was given a four-year jail sentence on charges of "disrespect", "public disorder", resistance", and "disobedience", dissident sources say. This year he was allowed to serve the rest of his term under house arrest in his home in the central city of Ciego de Avila, after more than two years in a Communist prison.

NO LENIENCY

He told reporters in April that the move was not leniency, but because "it doesn't look good to have a blind person behind bars". The activist claimed the time he spent in detention had been "psychological torture", and human rights watchers say he had been beaten.

Gonzalez Leiva was one of 10 members of the Cuban Foundation for Human Rights detained in 2002 while holding a peaceful protest at a city hospital in solidarity with an independent journalist who they said "had been brutally beaten by State Security agents."