A group of Cuban organizations delivered a letter to the Apostolic Nunciature in Havana addressed to Pope Leo XIV, in which they document 939 violations of religious freedom that occurred in Cuba between March and September 2026, and they request that the situation of Cuban believers not be overlooked during his tour of Latin America.
The document was presented by Shaliaj Carlos Montoya, founder of the Bet-El Shalom church, and was jointly prepared by the CD Defense Religious Freedom Observatory and the Religious Freedom Observatory in Latin America (OLIRE), according to a report from Martí Noticias.
The 939 recorded violations include summonses to religious leaders, surveillance of congregations, obstacles to worship services, pressure against believers, and arbitrary detentions, affecting Catholics, evangelicals, Orthodox Christians, Jehovah's Witnesses, practitioners of Afro-Cuban religions, and followers of other faiths.
Juan Carlos Vargas, Executive Director of Defensa CD, summarized the scope of the complaint: "The 939 documented cases represent individuals and communities exposed to surveillance, summons, and reprisals."
Mario Félix Lleonart, deputy director of the CD Defense Religious Freedom Observatory, emphasized that repression is not concentrated in a single religious tradition, but rather affects believers from all doctrines without distinction.
The letter acknowledges that Cuba is not included in the pope's itinerary, whose tour of Uruguay, Argentina, and Peru began on November 6 and runs until November 17, but it turns that absence into a direct appeal to the Vatican: “An island may be left off a route, but it should not be excluded from the conversation about human rights.”
The organizations provided the Holy See with reports, testimonies, and supporting documents, aiming for the Cuban situation to be addressed in the pope's discussions with authorities and religious communities during the trip.
The delivery of the letter coincided with a new wave of repression against Christian activists on the island. On the same day, November 6, Pastor Rolando Pérez Lora, known as the Herald of Christ, was forcibly taken from Havana to Las Tunas in what activists described as an internal deportation under the threat of imprisonment.
This past weekend, police agents maintained a blockade in front of the building where Anna Bensi and her mother Caridad Silvente reside in Alamar, Havana, preventing them from leaving. Both were sentenced in October to two years of restricted freedom for recording and disseminating the visit of a MININT agent to their home. This Monday, Bensi reported that a police officer threatened to arrest her after she documented the operation.
Members of the collective Fuera de la Caja Cuba were also summoned and detained for 12 and more than 20 hours, respectively, between November 6 and 7. The regime also prohibited a Christian march in Manzanillo just hours before, which had official permission signed since November 1.
On Monday, the organization Christian Solidarity Worldwide alerted about this wave of detentions and summonses against religious leaders, communicators, and activists who have publicly expressed their views on the Cuban reality, and noted that religious activities and institutions remain subject to state controls.
The United States Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) included Cuba among the countries with "severe and systematic" violations in its March 2026 report and recommended designating it as a Country of Particular Concern.
The Pope Leo XIV appointed Juan Gabriel Díaz Ruiz as the new archbishop of Santiago de Cuba this Tuesday, a sign that the Vatican remains actively attentive to the island.
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