By BosNewsLife Americas Service
BANES, CUBA (BosNewsLife)– The devoted Catholic mother of late dissident Orlando Zapata Tamayo, who died while being imprisoned, prepared for another tense weekend Friday, August 20, after Cuban officials made clear she would not be allowed to attend Sunday Mass and visit the cemetery where her son is buried, rights activists said.
Advocacy group Christian Solidarity Worldwide (CSW) told BosNewsLife it has been urging Cuba’s government to enable Reina Luis Tamayo Danger to “attend religious services and to cease their harassment of her family.”
Since early August, on consecutive Sundays, State Security agents and government supporters in the town of Banes “physically blocked the road taken by Tamayo Danger on her way to church, preventing her from attending Sunday Mass” and visiting her son’s grave, CSW added.
Video footage reportedly shows a line of men in uniform interlocking arms across a dirt road, standing face to face with a small group of women accompanying Tamayo Danger.
The women are part of a larger movement across the island known as the Ladies in White, made up of wives and mothers of prisoners of conscience. A crowd of people chants pro-government slogans and shouts obscenities at the women who stand in front of them, unable to pass.
“ACTS OF INTIMIDATION”
In remarks distributed by CSW, Tamayo Danger said for over five months she and her family have been subjected to “acts of intimidation” from government officials, including verbal abuse and threats of violence.
“Her weekly attendance at Mass at the La Caridad Catholic Church has been particularly targeted. She says, however, that the violence and intimidation is no longer confined to Sundays,” CSW explained.
Tamayo Danger has reportedly urged international media to come to Banes to cover the situation. CSW said it is calling on representatives of European embassies in Cuba to go to Banes to “investigate these threats and stand in solidarity” with the woman.
“No one should be subjected to these tactics of intimidation simply because they are attempting to attend a weekly religious service, a right enjoyed by religious believers across Cuba,” added CSW National Director Stuart Windsor.
INTERNATIONAL PRESSURE
It comes at a time when under international pressure Cuba continues to release dissidents from prison, sending them to Spain, although advocacy groups say many prisoners of concsience, including Christians, remain behind bars in the Communist-run island.
Orlando Zapata Tamayo died in February after fasting for more than 80 days to demand better treatment of dissidents in prison. It was the first known death of a detained opponent of the Cuban government during a hunger strike since the 1972 death of dissident Pedro Luis Boitel, observers said.
Cuban authorities have denied the existence of dissidents calling them instead “mercenaries of the United States” aimed at overthrowing the government. Communist leader Fidel Castro led the one-party state for nearly 50 years; his brother Raul took over as leader in 2008.
