Christian Solidarity Worldwide: Young Cuban religious freedom defender blocked from leaving Cuba

Cuban religious freedom activist Félix Yuniel Llerena has been banned from travel after he returned from his first trip outside of Cuba.

 

Félix Yuniel Llerena banned from travel

Religious Freedom Defender Blocked From Leaving

19 Jun 2017

By Christian Solidarity Worldwide

A religious freedom defender has been blocked from leaving Cuba to attend a conference on human rights and democracy. Fếlix Llerena López was preparing to board his flight on Saturday 17 June, when state security agents approached him and took him into an office where they informed him that he was barred from leaving the country. 

While Llerena López was not given a reason for the travel ban, he was told that it had been put in place after he returned from a visit to the United States (US) in May, his first trip outside of the country. Llerena López works with the Patmos Institute, an independent civil society organisation which promotes freedom of religion or belief (FoRB) for all and inter-religious dialogue. While he was in the US, he raised concerns about FoRB violations in meetings with US government officials and members of Congress arranged by Christian Solidarity Worldwide (CSW). Llerena Lopez was expelled from university shortly after his return.

In addition, last week, a prominent leader in the Apostolic Movement, Pastor Alain Toledano, was visited by state security agents and Communist Party officials at his home in Santiago de Cuba, who showed him an ‘acta de advertencia’, or a pre-arrest warrant, which he is concerned may also be used to block him from traveling abroad.

 In a statement to CSW, Pastor Toledano said, “…the strategy that the police are using here is that they come one by one to the house, they don’t send a citation, nothing written down, and they don’t give you a copy of the ‘actas de advertencia’ against you, even if you ask for one, since they know it can be used against them. They are perfecting their methods so as not to leave any traces of their persecution and acts of evil against the churches and ministries, even as we suffer here in the country.”

While the government requirement for an exit visa was dropped in 2013, there has been an increase in the number of Cuban activists involved with independent civil society organisations and the defence of human rights or democracy being blocked from leaving the country. In one example, that of Karina Gálvez, who works with Convivencia, an independent civil society organisation in Pinar del Rio. The government has brought trumped up charges against her which prevent her from leaving the country. In other cases, like that of Llerena López and also Berta Soler, a leader of the Ladies in White Movement who was prevented from leaving the country last month, officials have simply blocked them from boarding flights out of the country with no official justification given. 

CSW’s Chief Executive Mervyn Thomas said: “We are deeply concerned by what has happened to Felix Llerena López and Pastor Toledano over the past week, and condemn what appears to be a wider strategy of arbitrarily blocking certain human rights and democracy activists, including religious leaders and FoRB defenders, from leaving the country. We call on the European Union, the United States and other members of the international community to raise this with the Cuban authorities and to push for the right of freedom of movement to be respected for all, especially those who are involved in peaceful religious activities and the promotion of universally recognised human rights.”

Related article:

• Cuba Cuban activist expelled from university 10 May 2017  

Totalitarian repression on the march in Cuba: Claiming new victims and martyrs

Old patterns of repression continue to ensnare new generations 

Clockwise: Harold Cepero, Sayli Navarro, David Mauri, Fếlix Yuniel, Karla Pérez,

Cuban students are expelled from school for refusing to repeat the old tired cliches of the revolution. Fếlix Yuniel Llerena López, a 20 year-old religious freedom defender, was expelled from the Enrique José Varona Pedagogical University in Havana on May 8, 2017 following a visit to the United States. 18-year-old journalism student, Karla Pérez González, was expelled from Marta Abreu University of Santa Clara for “political reasons” on April 12, 2017 and her expulsion ratified three days later on April 15th. 24 year old David Mauri Cardoso was expelled from the University of Cienfuegos in February of 2017 after he honestly answered politically loaded questions in what was supposed to be a Spanish literature exam.

This is not a new tactic. Expelling students and denying them an education for their political orientation has a long and shameful history, too often ignored. Sayli Navarro was expelled from her university in Matanzas for her political views in 2009. On  November 13, 2002 Harold Cepero Escalante and Yoan Columbié Rodriguez,  students in their fourth year of Veterinary Medicine, were expelled from the University of Camagüey and subjected to an act of repudiation after having signed a legal petition for human rights reforms called the Varela Project. This practice is not new. Fidel Castro declared in June of 1961 that outside of the revolution there are no rights. The regime also declared that universities are for revolutionaries.

Prisoner of conscience Eduardo Cardet serving unjust three year prison sentence

It does not end with school. Even professionals who dissent that have life giving skills are imprisoned and not allowed to practice their profession. A medical doctor, Eduardo Cardet, has been jailed since November 30, 2016 for speaking critically about Fidel Castro's legacy in Cuba. There is no independent judiciary in Cuba and the puppet court according to his attorney has affirmed Eduardo's three year prison sentence.  No more appeals.

Pastor Ramon Rigal (on the right) serving a year in prison for homeschooling his kids.

In Cuba not only are students expelled from school for refusing to tow the official line, but parents are jailed for trying to home school. Pastor Ramon Rigal was sentenced on April 25, 2017 to one year in prison for the "crime" of homeschooling his own kids.

Peaceful dissent, and self-expression do not only invite expulsion from school and prison but can lead to an untimely death. Harold Cepero, the 2002 expelled veterinary student, was murdered along with Oswaldo Payá Sardiñas, the founding leader of the Christian Liberation Movement,  on July 22, 2012. Less than ten years after his expulsion.

This is Cuba today a totalitarian nightmare that many still try to flee and a few remain to courageously resist. There is nothing romantic about a 58 year old repressive dictatorship.

Cuban defiance to Castro totalitarianism revealed to all on May Day

 The audacity of hope in Cuba meets the cold reality of Raul Castro's secret police

Unidentified protester running with an American flag chased by secret police

Was it great courage, desperation for freedom, or a Cuban example of what Barack Obama called the "audacity of hope" that prompted a black Cuban to sprint in front of the Castro regime's May Day parade carrying an American flag in his outstretched hands as he ran as fast as he could chased by Castro's secret police.  When they finally caught him they roughed him up and carried him away. The Associated Press reported that after being subdued and hauled away one of the secret policemen "struck the protester in the face as he was carried past reporters."  One can only wonder what they are doing to him away from the cameras. Videos that have emerged showing the pursuit and violent take down of this lone demonstrator, a powerful demonstration that Cuba remains a totalitarian regime. However it is also a vivid reminder that Cubans defiance and desire to live in freedom has not been diminished.

Full story, photos: protester disrupts start of Cuba's annual May Day parade: https://t.co/JbMMCLm7tj (from @AP) pic.twitter.com/eiOdb5mZPf

— Michael Weissenstein (@mweissenstein) May 1, 2017

This also needs to be placed in context. Eduardo Cardet Concepción, national coordinator of the Christian Liberation Movement, a physician, husband and father of two since November 30, 2017 has been imprisoned in Cuba. What offense did he commit? He gave a critical appraisal of Fidel Castro's life and legacy in Cuba. He has spent six months in prison and was beaten up in front of his wife and two sons the day he was arrested. He is also an Amnesty International prisoner of conscience. There is an ongoing campaign for his release.

 Félix Yuniel Llerena detained and threatened by secret police in Cuba

Another example from April 29, 2017 involves 20 year old Félix Yuniel Llerena, a youth activist,  who spoke out against the Castro dictatorship while visiting the United States, returned home to harassment and the confiscation of goods on his arrival at the airport followed by a request to appear at a police station with his mother where he was threatened that "these are country folk, of people who don't understand anything of human rights and if some peasant believes that you are going to commit a terrorist act, he will attack you with a machete and later don't say that we sent him"; "if you continue acting like this we are going to declare you persona non grata in this municipality so that you will no longer be able to visit your family (...) we also know that you brought radios, backpacks and papers of Cuba Decide, therefore when you return to Villa Clara try to come clean because that we are not going to permit again (...).

Other young Cubans have been expelled from university for expressing themselves truthfully or for belonging to a civic organization. The Castro regime's claim that the "University is for Revolutionaries" endures to the present day, even if some consider it a cruel caricature to claim that allegiance to a static and decaying 58 year old totalitarian dictatorship as revolutionary.

However, I do not because the Castro regime is anti-natural, violating human societal norms, and systematically rejecting and violating human rights that are natural rights that preexist governing institutions.  The Castro regime is a totalitarian communist regime. Over the past century communist totalitarian regimes in Russia, China, Cambodia, Vietnam, North Korea, and in many other places has claimed the lives of over a 100 million souls. In that sense it is a permanent revolution against a just order. This is why the Castro regime must be resisted and rejected.

One way to do that is to speak up for Eduardo, Félix, and the unknown man who for a few brief moments before the cameras of the world, with an American flag flapping over his head, defied a communist regime that had spent six decades trying to silence all dissent.