A Christmas hope

Christmas is officially back -- after a 29-year hiatus in Cuba. Such are tidings of comfort and joy from the Cuban state, which expelled and jailed hundreds of Catholic priests and persecuted Jehovah's Witnesses in the 1960s and 1970s.

The ``Cuban Revolution was never characterized by an anti-religious sentiment,'' affirmed the Cuban Communist Party statement signaling Dec. 25 an official holiday from now on. Never mind that Fidel Castro declared Cuba to be communist and atheist in 1962.

Cuba's government bent over backward to polish its image for Pope John Paul's historic visit early this year. Honoring a Vatican request, it even allowed the celebration of Christmas last year.

Yet Castro's impulse to control persists. Last month his regime pardoned Jesus Chamber Ramirez and Desi Mendoza Rivero, two political prisoners who had been convicted of ``disseminating enemy propaganda.'' The catch: They must leave Cuba to find freedom.

Or consider dissident journalist Mario Viera, charged with defamation for an article, Morality in Undershorts, about the regime's hypocrisy. He noted that a Cuban official had advocated for an independent and impartial world criminal court, when such a judiciary doesn't exist in Cuba.

When reporters and his supporters showed up outside the courthouse, the state-supported ``rapid-response brigade'' was waiting. A 20-minute melee ended with more dissidents arrested. No wonder Human Rights Watch once again laments Cuba's ``disheartening return to heavy-handed repression.''

Still, therein is a real hope this Christmas: In the face of an intransigent government, waves of courageous dissidents continue to risk arrest and worse to push for change, to forge a civil society.