The inclusion of Cuba on the blacklist of countries that the US says violates religious freedom has motivated a campaign by the official press to demonstrate to the contrary. This is despite the fact that several priests, nuns, pastors, santeros and practitioners of various cults have been systematically harassed by the government.
Enrique Alemán Gutiérrez, director of the Cabildo Quisicuaba cultural project in central Havana, is one of the regime’s usual interlocutors to debate the issue. For this reason, interviewed precisely this Wednesday by , he again defended that the state “recognises, respects and guarantees” all religions, although at no time did he admit the political role as critical voices that various religious leaders have assumed.
The director of Quisicuaba – a project that also has a social and religious focus – claims the government has registered “countless institutions” in the register of associations and attributes this “recognition” to the Cuban Revolution.
Alemán describes it as an “achievement” that the Communist Party has accepted believers into its ranks since 1991, membership that was strictly forbidden prior to the special period. In addition, the MP also mentions that the following year the state defined itself as secular rather than atheist. Visits by religious leaders such as Patriarch Kirill, allowing inmates to receive spiritual care and issuing religious visas are all signs of the government’s support for the religion, he says.
For Alemán, these groups are alien to Cuba’s “extremely broad religious spectrum,” whose constituents have already resolved their “commonalities” and coexistence
Therefore, according to Alemán, including Cuba among countries that disregard religious freedom is a strategy of “imperial politics” to “divide the people and Balkanize the faith.” One must be suspicious of “religious groups induced from abroad” – sects, Protestant denominations, fraternities – which are “neither so religious nor so newly founded”.
For Alemán, these groups are alien to Cuba’s “broad religious spectrum,” whose components have already dissolved their “commonalities” and coexistence within what the founder of Quisicuaba understands as “religious syncretism.” The real problem is the blockade preventing funds and donations from Quisicuaba’s allies and other regime-affiliated organizations from reaching the island.
In the summer of this year, a report by the Madrid-based organization Prisoners Defenders showed how the Cuban government had established a network of its own religious groups and planted numerous agents in churches and fraternities.
“In the case of the Christian churches, it founded the Council of Churches, in the case of the Yoruba religion, the Yoruba Cultural Association, and in the case of the Islamic religion, the Islamic League of Cuba. The three organizations are controlled by the State Security,” the document assured. Quisicuaba, spiritualistic by nature and with social projection, is part of the “strong core” of these organizations and has received visits from the country’s top leadership.
In early December, the US State Department targeted Cuba and Nicaragua — where the Catholic Church and civil society have been persecuted by Daniel Ortega — along with China, Saudi Arabia, North Korea, Russia, Iran, Pakistan, Burma, Eritrea, Tajikistan, and Turkmenistan, as well as organizations such as the terrorist groups Al Shabab, Boko Haram and the Islamic State; and the Taliban, the Yemeni Houthis and Russian paramilitaries of the Wagner Group.
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