Pope Benedict XVI’s three-day visit to Cuba starting Monday will begin under a cloud: human rights groups are appalled by Cuban Cardinal Jaime Ortega’s decision to call the police to evict peaceful dissidents who had sought refuge in a church to draw international attention to their demands for civil rights.
According to an official Cuban Roman Catholic Church communiqué published in the Cuban regime’s daily Granma, Ortega asked the police to evict 13 dissidents on March 14 after they had occupied the Our Lady of Charity church in Havana.
Following their forced eviction by anti-riot police clad in black uniforms, the dissidents, including an 82-year-old man, said they were beaten and taken to a police station, where they were interrogated for
