Cuban bishop complains after police nab dissidents at church
By ANDREA RODRIGUEZ
Associated Press
HAVANA — A Roman Catholic bishop said Wednesday he complained to Cuban
authorities this week after police forced their way onto the grounds of
a church in the eastern city of Santiago to detain a group of dissidents.
Bishop Dionisio Garcia Ibanez told The Associated Press that police
damaged St. Teresita Church's door during Tuesday's detention of an
unspecified number of protesters, but did not enter the sanctuary
itself, instead staying on the grounds.
"It is lamentable that these events happened; they should not have
occurred," Garcia Ibanez said by telephone from Santiago, about 500
miles east of Havana. "We have not received an exact response" from
authorities.
The bishop did not describe the damage to the door, but said the church
was unoccupied at the time.
There was no public response from Cuban authorities, who could not be
immediately reached for comment late Wednesday. Communist officials
rarely speak on the record to journalists without approval from their
superiors and most official reactions are released on state media.
The detentions on church grounds were brought to light earlier Wednesday
by the Cuban Commission for Human Rights and Reconciliation, an
internationally respected independent rights group that is largely
tolerated by the communist-run government.
The commission said about two dozen dissidents dressed in black were
marching outside St. Teresita church to protest the arrest of a
colleague several days before when police arrived. But neither the
commission nor the bishop could say exactly how many protesters were
detained. The commission said several detainees remained in custody a
day later.
The incident was highly unusual in Cuba, where the Catholic Church and
the communist-run government enjoy relatively respectful relations.
Cuba and the Vatican have maintained diplomatic relations since before
the 1959 revolution that brought Fidel Castro to power. Although
hundreds of foreign priests were expelled and parochial schools were
closed by Castro's government in the early 1960s, all references to
atheism were later removed from the constitution and believers of all
faiths were allowed to join the Communist Party beginning in the early
1990s.
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