Cuban church leaders charged with criminal activity

The charge follows the recent detention of at least 60 pastors and leaders in May and June.

Alexi Perez has been in prison for over a month accused of illicit economic activity. Although the original charges against him have been dropped, he now faces a new charge of illegally receiving construction materials.

Observers note this new charge is the same as that reportedly made against a prominent human rights activist, Dr Darsi Ferrer Ramirez.

Alexi Perez oversees a group of around 100 church members at the Apostolic Evangelical Church in San Jose de las Lajas in Havana Province.

In July, Pastor Omar Gude Perez, again from the Apostolic Movement, was sentenced to six years in prison. He had spent fourteen months in jail without trial prior to sentencing, and the charges against him had been changed on two occasions.

Around sixty other pastors and leaders from the Apostolic Movement have reported being temporarily detained and threatened on charges of “social dangerousness” in two sweeps between May and June this year.

Pastor Bernardo de Quesada Salomon and his wife Damaris Marin were both detained on 19 May.

CSW’s Advocacy Director Alexa Papadouris said the imprisonment of Alexi Perez appeared to be part of a pattern of government repression of churches associated with the Apostolic Movement.

"We call on the Cuban government to immediately release Alexi Perez and Omar Gude Perez, and to cease their harassment of the Apostolic Movement," she said.

"We also call on the international community, in particular the European Union, to remind the Cuban government of its obligations under the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, to push them to ratify this treaty, and to ensure that the rights guaranteed in the treaty, including religious freedom, are upheld and respected.”

Meanwhile, a pastor’s wife who lost her baby after a neighbour attacked her on the street has been fined the equivalent of over two months salary, after being charged by the authorities of ‘disturbing the public order’.

Gilianys Meneses de los Rios, daughter-in-law to Reverend Roberto Rodriguez and wife to Pastor Eric Gabriel Rodriguez, faced Cuba’s Placetas Tribunal on Monday 17 August. She has been fined 600 pesos, which is twice the average monthly salary in Cuba, for being attacked on the street by the wife of a neighbour in December 2008.

The attack was the latest in a campaign of harassment against the Rodriguez family, carried out with the tacit support of the authorities. This is due to the families’ involvement in the Interdenominational Fellowship of Evangelical Pastors and Ministers in Cuba (Spanish acronym; CIMPEC) decision to leave the Cuban Council of Churches (CCC.)

Ms Papadouris said: “It is a terrible injustice that Gilianys Meneses de los Rios is being fined for a crime she did not commit and over an incident in which she was the victim. We urgently call on the Cuban Government to investigate this and every charge against the Rodriguez family without further delay, and we urge the international community to raise this case with the Cuban government forthwith.”