The U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom and Christian and religious freedom advocacy groups call for the release of two pastors detained by authorities in Cuba July 11 for joining widespread antigovernment demonstrations in the Caribbean nation.
The pastors, Yéremi Blanco Ramírez and Yarian Sierra, were held in “poor conditions” in a section of a women’s prison in the coastal province of Matanzas near Havana, according to Premier Christian News, a UK-based site that monitors issues related to Christians worldwide.
The USCIRF called on the Cuban government July 13 “to immediately release religious leaders in their custody.” The pastors’ arrest was part of Cuba’s crackdown on recent demonstrations calling “for greater freedom and relief from Cuba’s economic and COVID-19 crises.”
“People are tired of the lack of medicines, lack of food … and that’s why they went on protest,” said Rev. Jatniel Peréz, director of the William Carey Biblical Seminary and pastor at Centro Bíblico Crecer in Velasco, Cuba, in an interview with USCIRF Vice Chair Tony Perkins July 20. Peréz said he doesn’t know the precise whereabouts of the two detained pastors.
“We received reports from the government that they were first in a women’s prison and then last night [July 19] at 1:30 in the morning police called their wives to tell them that they were sent to the regular prison for everybody,” Peréz said. “So now they have a case number and charges.”
“I only ask one question—why have two pastors been imprisoned as if they were criminals for the simple act of watching a peaceful demonstration?” Peréz asked in a Facebook post. He expressed concern for Pastor Blanco, who suffers from bronchial asthma, and so is particularly vulnerable if he contracts COVID-19 in the unhygienic setting where he has been imprisoned.
Peréz seeks the support of international organizations to demand the urgent release of the two pastors. “We fear for their lives,” he said.
At least two other religious leaders, a Catholic and another Protestant, were also detained along with Blanco and Sierra according to Christian Solidarity Worldwide (CSW), a charity group devoted to religious freedom: Father Castor José Álvarez Devesa, a Catholic priest who was beaten by authorities, and Rev. Yusniel Peréz Montejo, a member of the Eastern Baptist Convention of Cuba.
Father Castor was released from custody July 12, but the Baptist minister’s whereabouts remain unknown.
“Our family and that of Yarian Enmauel Sierra are desperate because we have no news of them,” wrote Adelys Rodríguez Reyes, the wife of Pastor Blanco Ramírez, in a July 15 statement to CSW.
“We welcome news of the release of Father Castor, though we note that he never should have been detained as none of these men have committed any crime,” said Anna-Lee Stangl, CSW’s head of advocacy. “We call on the government to immediately and unconditionally release both pastors, and all those detained in connection with the peaceful exercise of their basic human rights, and to drop any criminal charges made against them.”
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