A Cuban appeals court has surprised the homeschooling world by reversing a one-year prison sentence imposed on pastor Ramon Rigal for taking his children out of government schools and homeschooling them.
International Christian Concern (ICC) has learned that on July 7, Pastor Ramon Rigal, leader of Iglesia de Dios en Cristo, was sentenced to one year of heavy labor and house arrest for choosing to homeschool his children. Rigal has openly stated that his decision to homeschool was largely attributed to his Christian faith.
The first half of 2016 has seen church demolitions in Cuba gather pace as the government crackdown on freedom of religion or belief (FoRB) on the island continues. The authorities have also begun to confiscate 1,400 Assemblies of God (AOG) churches that were earmarked for seizure in 2015, according to Christian Solidarity Worldwide.
Earlier this month, police in Cuba had arrested two pastors while government officials supervised the demolition of their churches.
Hundreds of Christians in Cuba were without a place of worship after security forces closed down the Full Gospel Church as part of a government attempt to “destroy” evangelical congregations on the Communist-run island, rights activists said.
Some 10,000 people attended Cuba’s first evangelistic outdoor rally in decades with many accepting Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior at the event, where a huge storm miraculously passed, an evangelical aid and mission group said.
Cuban church leaders recently asked the U.S. government to put their country on its list of the world’s worst violators of religious freedoms.
Over two months after a Cuban pastor was beaten and left unconscious in eastern Cuba, officials have still no suspects in the case, Christian rights activists told Worthy News Wednesday, April 10.
A Pentecostal pastor in Cuba was recovering of brain damage Tuesday, March 13, after he was assaulted while trying to challenge the confiscation of a church truck by Communist authorities, Christians said.
A Cuban pastor who was imprisoned and then granted asylum by the United States was denied permission to leave Cuba.
Baptist Pastor Mario Felix Lleonart Barroso and his wife, Yoaxis, were part of the 23 Christians detained by Cuban police in Santa Clara, said Christian Solidarity Worldwide (CSW), a major religious rights group.
Cuba has released an evangelical pastor from a six-and-a-half year prison sentence under condition that he does not preach and remains confined to his home city of Camaguey, representatives said Monday, March 28.
A leaked video appears to show a Cuban Communist Party official openly confirming a government strategy to target churches affiliated with the fast growing Apostolic Movement, a protestant network.
Cuba has released and dropped all charges of “threatening behavior” against a well-known church after his accusers gave contradictory evidence against him, a Christian human rights organization said Monday, September 7.
A respected church leader in Cuba was unexpectedly arrested on Monday on trumped up charges of “offensive behavior” and “threats” according to a Christian human rights organization.
Cuba will release 52 political prisoners as part of the communist-run Caribbean island’s largest release of dissidents since Pope John Paul II visited in 1998, the Cuban Catholic Church said comments monitored by Worthy News Thursday, July 8.
The wife of jailed Cuban Pastor Omar Gude Perez faced a difficult weekend after authorities reportedly told her that the family home is to be confiscated. The family will be relocated to a significantly smaller apartment in poor conditions outside the city of Camaguey, said advocacy group Christian Solidarity Worldwide (CSW), which has closely monitored the case.
There was international disappointment Monday, February 1, that the leader of a growing network of independent churches in Cuba has been denied the right to appeal his six-year prison sentence by the Supreme Tribunal in Havana.
Two Baptist leaders who were detained in eastern Cuba while distributing humanitarian aid from American Christians were free Tuesday, October 27, after two weeks imprisonment Christians said.
Two Cuban Baptist leaders are detained in Cuba on charges of “illicit financial activity,” after distributing financial aid from American Christians to needy churches in the island’s Guantanamo province, an international advocacy group said Monday, October 19.