Cuba prevents mother of dead prisoner of conscience from attending church

Christian Solidarity Worldwide (CSW) is calling on the Cuban government to allow the mother of a Cuban prisoner who died in jail earlier this year to attend religious services.

It also wants authorities to cease their "harassment" of her and her family.

Since the beginning of August, Cuban State Security agents and other pro-government members of the community in Banes, Holguín Province, have "physically blocked the road" taken by Reina Luisa Tamayo Danger on her way to church, preventing her from attending Sunday Mass and visiting the cemetery where her son, Orlando Zapata Tamayo, is buried.

"Video footage sent out of Cuba shows a line of men in uniform interlocking arms across a dirt road, standing face to face with a small group of women accompanying Reina Luisa Tamayo Danger," said a spokesperson for the organisation.

"The women are part of a larger movement across the island known as the 'Ladies in White,' made up of wives and mothers of prisoners of conscience. A crowd of people chants pro-government slogans and shouts obscenities at the women who stand in front of them, unable to pass."

According to the mother, for over five months she and her family have been subjected to acts of intimidation from government officials, including verbal abuse and threats of violence. Her weekly attendance at Mass at the La Caridad Catholic Church has been particularly targeted. She says, however, that the violence and intimidation is no longer confined to Sundays.

Reina Luisa Tamayo Danger has requested that the international media come to Banes to cover the situation. CSW is calling on representatives of European embassies in Cuba to go to Banes to investigate these threats and "stand in solidarity with her".

CSW's National Director Stuart Windsor says, "No one should be subjected to these tactics of intimidation simply because they are attempting to attend a weekly religious service, a right enjoyed by religious believers across Cuba. We are calling on the Cuban government to cease its harassment of Mrs. Reina Luisa Tamayo Danger immediately and to allow her to attend Mass and visit her son's grave without hindrance."