Document #1048200
IRB – Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada (Author)
Please find attached a copy of an
Information Request which contains information on Catholics in
Cuba. The Human Rights Watch critique of the attached section of
Country Reports for 1989 has not been published yet (it is
expected to be published around July 1990). Also attached, please
find a copy of "God gets another chance", in The Economist,
24 December 1988,
p. 53. Also attached, please find a copy of "La persecution
religieuse", pages 9-10 of Cuba en 1988: La Condition des Droits
de l'Homme, published by the President of the Cuban Commission
for Human Rights (CCPDH).
According to the Conference of Catholic
Bishops in Ottawa, as stated in a telephone communication on 28
November 1989, a relative improvement in relations between the
government of Cuba and the Catholic Church has occurred over the
last years, including occasional exchanges of views between the
Cuban Conference of Bishops and government officials. The
Conference expected the Pope to visit Cuba in 1990. The Ottawa
Conference of Catholic Bishops had no reports on changes in the
government policy of restricting employment for practising
Catholics and allowing Catholic gatherings to take place only
inside churches.`Americas Watch, as communicated to the IRBDC by
telephone on 26 April 1990, indicated that efforts are apparently
being made by both the Cuban Government and the Catholic Church to
improve relations in preparation to a possible visit to Cuba by the
Pope in the near future. However, reports have been received
regarding the arrest in early 1990 of three church workers (exact
denomination of their religion or church was not known by Americas
Watch on this date) who were also leaders of a movement under the
name of "Liberación" (liberation), which apparently worked
for improving living conditions, including human rights. Americas
Watch also indicated that human rights reports from Cuba have
become increasingly difficult to obtain in recent months, in part
because of the recent arrest of eight human rights activists, and
because the human rights groups in Cuba have not been allowed to
operate.
In a more recent telephone communication
with the IRBDC (8 June 1990), Americas Watch indicated that the
Pope's visit has apparently been postponed until 1991 or later, and
that a new "wrinkle" in relations between the Cuban government and
the Catholic Church was caused by a recent speech by Fidel Castro
in which the Church was strongly criticized.
A representative of the National
Association of Cuban-Canadians in Ottawa stated on a telephone
communication with the IRBDC on 6 June 1990 that the Pope's visit
to Cuba has been indefinitely postponed as the Cuban government is
concerned about a recently increasing religious fervour.
Additional corroborating information for
the above statements could not be found among the sources currently
available to the IRBDC.