IKV Pax Christi is trying to support and strengthen the peaceful democratic opposition in Cuba. Community-based organisations will play an important role in the future transition to democracy.

 

Cuba has been under the yoke of a totalitarian regime for forty years. Fidel Castro's communist party has kept tight hold on the reins and refuses to call free elections on the island. For four decades it has trampled on human rights. Cuba has no freedom of speech, no independent judicial system, no freedom of the press, no freedom of assembly, and independent unions and civil society organisations are prohibited.

 

2007 witnessed no decline in repression on Cuba. The Catholic Church has not been given the freedom of movement that had been expected after the Pope's visit in 1998. At the same time the number of dissidents and prisoners of conscience incarcerated in deplorable conditions is growing; international humanitarian organisations are not permitted access to prisons.