Bruno Rodríguez says that the regime “respects and guarantees religious freedom”

MIAMI, United States. — Bruno Rodríguez Parrilla, foreign minister of the Cuban regime, assured this Tuesday on social networks that on the island “religious freedom is recognized, respected and guaranteed.”

The Castro official’s statements came in response to the annual report on International Religious Freedom of the US State Department, which exposed numerous cases of repression against religious in Cuba during 2022.

“In Cuba, religious freedom is recognized, respected and guaranteed. The slanders in the recent State Department report are intended to discredit our country, with the interest of justifying the inhumane blockade measures of the United States, which violate the Human Rights of our population,” Rodríguez Parrilla wrote in his Twitter account. Twitter.

The publication of the foreign minister of the regime received responses from Cuban activists in exile, who accused him of lying and denying proven facts.

“Thought is not respected in Cuba, much less religious beliefs, history has been around since 1959,” commented Jorge E. Naranjo, who reminded Rodríguez Parrilla that “on September 17, 1961, Fidel Castro ordered the expulsion of Cuba of more than a hundred religious, including 136 Cuban and Spanish priests”.

“The report does not discredit anyone, least of all Cuba. Bruno Rodríguez, Cuba and the Cuban government are not the same, even if you and your bosses insist on their advantage and cowardice that they are,” said Cuban artist Julio Llopiz-Casal.

Earlier this month, the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF), after presenting its annual report on religious freedom, recommended including Cuba among the “countries of special concern”, due to the increase in repression against religious during the past year.