Priest Alberto Reyes calls on the Security Forces to reflect on their role in defending the Cuban dictatorship.
14ymedio, Havana, 14 June 2025 — “How can you lend yourself to harassing and intimidating young people who perhaps have the same thoughts and ideals as your own children?” This is how Father Alberto Reyes addresses those charged with “taking care of the country, protecting its citizens: police, State Security agents, members of elite forces, whether they be red berets, black berets, black wasps…” in a post on his social media on Friday.
The students’ voices aren’t the only ones that have resonated in recent weeks calling for social and political change. From other sectors of society, including the religious community, reflections on the island’s turmoil have reached social media and independent media. Under the title ’He estado pensando’ [I’ve been thinking], the Camagüey priest called on the military forces to reflect on “what you’re doing right and what you’re doing wrong.”
This isn’t a speech from the top of the ecclesiastical hierarchy. The priests and nuns closest to the people—the same ones who came out to defend the protesters on 11 July 2021—have supported the students in a context of harassment of university students who have protested against Etecsa’s tariffs, the ‘tarifazo‘. While State Security agents knock on doors and warn against posting “counterrevolutionary” content on social media, Reyes urges people to listen to their own conscience.
“The social model in which we live, being dictatorial, is based on the conception that the priority of these forces is not serving the people but rather the unquestionable defense of power. Since it is a power against the people, the vision it presents to its military forces is that the people are an enemy to be controlled,” the priest said.
“These forces’ priority is not serving the people but rather defending power without question.”
According to the parish priest of the municipality of Esmeralda, “being a police officer, a State Security agent, a member of elite forces (…) is fulfilling a beautiful vocation: caring for the country, protecting its citizens, guaranteeing the safety of individuals.” When “you are not an instrument that enables society to feel safe and at peace, then the meaning of your vocation has been corrupted.”
Reyes, whose stances against the regime have earned him several reprimands from State Security and within the Church itself, did not hesitate to question the repression of citizens who already live in “slavery” and “need.”
A few days earlier, Father Lester Zayas also reported the attack on his vehicle due to his statements against the government. “It’s true that coincidences happen, but do they always happen the same way? This is how our car looked this morning after a long night of blackouts throughout El Vedado, right in front of our convent,” he wrote on June 3.
The priest was referring to a lengthy post he published the day after President Miguel Díaz-Canel appeared on a new episode of his podcast to explain the blackouts. Zayas expressed his astonishment at the lack of a “good advisor” at the island’s leader’s side. As a result, and according to the photo accompanying his complaint, the vehicle’s windows were smashed and part of the radio destroyed.
This Friday, in an interview with Martí Noticias, Father Castor José Álvarez—known for his arrest during the 11 June 2021 protests in Camagüey—stated that “the Cuban people are trapped in a political system that not only doesn’t provide them with opportunities, but also denies them the right to live with dignity.” The priest called on the authorities to reflect, explaining that on the island “there can be no peace without freedom.”
This week, 14ymedio also reviewed a Facebook post by Nadieska Almeida, the Mother Superior of the Daughters of Charity in Cuba, in which she denounced that authorities had used a photo of her to simulate an environment of understanding and collaboration between the Church and the government.
During a routine visit at the nursing home run by the religious community, the authorities asked for a photo and the nun agreed.
During a routine visit to the nursing home run by the religious community, the authorities asked for a photo, and the nun agreed. However, days later, she received “the surprise that, without permission, they had posted it on social media with the following message: ’Together for a revolutionary ideal.’” Almeida said she felt “very upset, as is to be expected,” and that was the reason that prompted her to write her text and attack the Revolution.
“I don’t believe, I don’t hope, I don’t see anything valuable in the revolution. So many lies, so many ways to crush my people, so many deceptive promises,” she declared in her post. “How can I believe in a project that continues to claim the lives of young people forced into military service? How can I believe them when they want to silence the cries of hunger of our children and the elderly? How can I believe them when they plunge us once again into isolation and disconnection, when they shamelessly lie to us and once again insult the intelligence of an entire people with [internet and phone] rates unattainable for many?” she said, referring to the Etecsa tarifazo (rate hike).
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