{"id":1354,"date":"2009-04-14T17:40:00","date_gmt":"2009-04-14T17:40:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/news\/2009\/04\/commission-cuba-withholds-visa.php"},"modified":"2009-04-14T17:40:00","modified_gmt":"2009-04-14T17:40:00","slug":"commission-cuba-withholds-visa","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2009\/04\/commission-cuba-withholds-visa","title":{"rendered":"Commission: Cuba Withholds Visas from Religious Freedom Delegation"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Washington &#8211; The same day President Obama lifted some U.S. travel and monetary restrictions against Cuba, a federal religious freedom panel said Havana is withholding visas ahead of a scheduled visit to the island nation.<br \/>\nMembers of the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom were planning to visit Cuba to discuss religious freedom with government officials and religious communities.<br \/>\n&#8220;We are very disappointed by the Cuban government&#8217;s refusal to allow an official U.S. delegation to investigate firsthand Cuban citizens&#8217; freedom to believe and practice their faith on the island,&#8221; USCIRF chair Felice D. Gaer said Monday (April 13). &#8220;Our commission has visited China, Vietnam, Laos, Saudi Arabia and other countries. Does the Cuban government have something to hide?&#8221;<br \/>\nUSCIRF spokesman Tom Carter said the commission received only a verbal notice of the visas being withheld and no written explanation.<br \/>\nRepresentatives of the Cuba Interests Section in Washington, which USCIRF officials contacted to seek the visas, could not be reached immediately for comment.<br \/>\nCuba is on the commission&#8217;s &#8220;watch list&#8221; of countries that it considers in need of close monitoring because of religious freedom violations permitted or conducted by the government.<br \/>\n&#8220;The commission has received reports that there are improvements in some sectors in Cuba,&#8221; said Gaer. &#8220;As with other countries, we seek to ascertain how much and where. &#8230; Not allowing USCIRF&#8217;s bipartisan delegation to visit is a very disturbing sign.&#8221;<br \/>\n<em>By Adelle M. Banks<br \/>\nCopyright 2009 Religion News Service. All rights reserved. No part of this transmission may be distributed or reproduced without written permission.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Washington &#8211; The same day President Obama lifted some U.S. travel and monetary restrictions against Cuba, a federal religious freedom panel said Havana is withholding visas ahead of a scheduled visit to the island nation. Members of the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom were planning to visit Cuba to discuss religious freedom with government&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":37,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fbia_status":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1354","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Commission: Cuba Withholds Visas from Religious Freedom Delegation<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2009\/04\/commission-cuba-withholds-visa\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Commission: Cuba Withholds Visas from Religious Freedom Delegation\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Washington &#8211; The same day President Obama lifted some U.S. travel and monetary restrictions against Cuba, a federal religious freedom panel said Havana is withholding visas ahead of a scheduled visit to the island nation. 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