Cuban police evicted 13 dissidents from a church they had been occupying for two days demanding that Pope Benedict XVI air a list of grievances during his upcoming trip to the island, a Roman Catholic Church spokesman said.
The protesters were removed from the Church of Charity in densely packed central Havana late on Thursday at the request of the city’s cardinal, church spokesman Orlando Marquez said in a statement.
“Cardinal Jaime Ortega addressed the competent authorities to invite the occupiers to abandon the sanctuary,” the statement said.
The dissidents were removed without resistance, it added.
“The agents who carried out the operation had assured the Church they would be unarmed, that they would initially take the 13 persons to a police station and then to their homes. It also said they would be processed,” Marquez said.
The dissidents initially occupied the church on Tuesday to demand an audience with Benedict when he visits Cuba this month. They later changed their demand and said they wanted the pontiff to mediate a list of their grievances with the Cuban government.
The occupation clearly angered Catholic officials, who have been friendly to and mediated for other dissidents in the past.
Fred Calderon, a spokesman for the dissidents, said his group wanted Benedict to speak with authorities about freeing people imprisoned for political crimes, ending intimidation of dissidents, increasing access to information, expanding private property rights, doing away with travel restrictions and establishing a transitional government to end a half-century of Communist rule under Cuban President Raul Castro and former president Fidel Castro.
“We want him to intercede on our behalf ... and be a mediator for our demands,” Calderon said.
The church had forcefully rejected the protest, which spokesman Orlando Marquez termed “illegitimate” and “disrespectful.” Even prominent Cuban dissidents questioned whether disrupting a house of worship was an appropriate tactic.
Cuba’s government has had little to say, but generally considers dissidents to be mercenaries trying to undermine its authority. State media, which rarely mention the opposition, published the Catholic Church’s condemnation of the occupation in Thursday’s papers.
“Nobody has the right to turn temples into political trenches,” read the communique from Marquez, which was issued the previous evening.
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