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AICNOR reports surveillance and an exit ban against two pastors in Las Tunas

The Alliance of Unregistered Cuban Churches denounced on October 21 the harassment of apostle Mario Jorge Travieso Medina and pastor Velmis Adriana Mariño González, founders of the Viento Recio International Ministry, in Las Tunas, for handing out breakfasts and lunches to vulnerable people.

The Alliance of Unregistered Cuban Churches (AICNOR) published a statement on Facebook on Wednesday, October 21, saying that the married couple has been “regulated” for years: they cannot leave Cuba by air or by sea and cannot obtain ordinary passports either. According to the organization, the freedom of movement of both “has been turned into a weapon of punishment simply for carrying out their ministry and serving the most vulnerable,” in wording translated by Yamacoa.

The harassment AICNOR describes includes constant surveillance, summonses, detentions, interrogations and the confiscation and demolition of property linked to the religious work, as well as repeated pressure on both leaders to leave the country and not return. Mario Félix Lleonart, who drives the platform, told Martí Noticias that surveillance, detentions and “boycotts of their services have intensified” in recent weeks, in remarks translated by Yamacoa.

The organization also attributes a social media smear campaign to profiles allegedly run by State Security officers, and says it has counted at least eight such posts against the apostle’s reputation. According to the complaint, those posts began after Viento Recio started handing out food to people in vulnerable situations, and the offensive “intensifies every week.”

AICNOR contrasted the couple’s situation with the official passports that, it says, the Office of Religious Affairs of the Central Committee of the Cuban Communist Party provides to leaders of denominations recognized by the State, and it called on registered churches to speak out. The alliance recalled how those denominations reacted to the case against influencer Ana Sofía Benítez and her mother, Caridad Silvente, sentenced to two years of limitation of freedom for an offense against the personal and family privacy of a police officer who served them a State Security summons.

The case has a documented history. In April 2022, both were detained for organizing a gathering for mothers of Cubans jailed after the protests of July 11 and 12, 2021, and a month earlier the congregation had accompanied the family of pastor Lorenzo Rosales Fajardo, imprisoned for taking part in those demonstrations. In February 2022, Travieso Medina signed the Letter for Life, which called for the death penalty to be left out of the new Penal Code.

Sources: Martí Noticias · Infobae

Data updated: 2026-10-23T04:15:00.000Z

AICNOR reports surveillance and an exit ban against two pastors in Las Tunas | Yamacoa Observatory