GUANTANAMO, Cuba – A Cuban judge sentenced a pastor to prison and his wife to house arrest this week for removing their children from the socialist government school system to teach them at home.

Pastor Ramon Rigal was sentenced to a year in prison Tuesday after a three-hour sham trial in which the government prosecutor alleged homeschooling is banned in Cuba “because it has a capitalist foundation,” according to the Home School Legal Defense Association.

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Rigal and his wife Adya Rigal removed their children from government schools this year, and shortly after officials noticed the family was visited by three police, an attorney, and two teachers.

“They wanted to impose their position on us and gave us a warning notice and told us they would take us before the courts because of our position on homeschooling,” Ramon said.

“I visited authorities several times to find a peaceable solution to my problem,” he said. “I brought up the possibility of homeschooling under their supervision. I was told if I did, my wife and I would be imprisoned and our children sent away.”

The family later received a letter from the Municipal Office of Education that stated “in our system, homeschooling is not considered an educational institution, as this term is basically used in countries with capitalist foundations.”

The also warned of sanctions for anyone who “leads a minor to abandon his home, be absent from school, refuse educational work that is inherent to the national system of education, or fail to fulfill his dues related to the respect and love of the homeland.”

“We wanted the freedom to give our children the education that we, the parents have chosen,” Ramon said, according to the HSLDA. “As Article 26.3 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights says, every parent has the right to give his children the education that he chooses.”

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Ramon said investigators interviewed neighbors to build their case and disparaged him as a community leader and pastor. The family reached out the HSLDA, and Director of Global Outreach Michael Donnelly wrote to the Senior Minister of Education in Cuba in November and called on government leaders to recognize the family’s homeschooling rights.

The letter went unanswered.

Instead, two police showed up at the family’s home on Feb. 21 to take the parents under arrest. The couple arranged to turn themselves at the police station a short time later, and were detained in police custody for nearly two days on a charge of “acting contrary to the normal development of a minor” before they were released with monitoring.

On Tuesday the couple appeared at what amounted to a sham trial aimed at grandstanding against homeschooling in the country, the HSLDA reports.

“I brought evidence that my children were learning – notebooks and materials – but they didn’t care,” Ramon said. “When I tried to tell the judge about my evidence or to say that the government was acting unfairly, the judge told me that if I continued to speak she would have me removed from the courtroom.”

The judge heard the scripted testimonies of school officials who alleged only qualified teachers can properly instill socialist values and refused to acknowledge the family’s witnesses.

“Whenever I tried to bring up one of my witnesses,” Ramon said, “the judge would tell them to ‘get out of here.’”

Ramon Rigal was ultimately sentenced to a year in prison, and his wife received a year of house arrest.

We are only trying to do what is best for our children,” Adya Rigal said. “I do not want to be separated from my husband. Our children need him. Our church needs our pastor. My children are very sad and worried.”

Donnelly alleges the ruling violates the family’s human rights.

“A government that denies parents the right to choose how their children are educated, including home education, violates fundamental norms of international human rights law,” Donnelly told Breitbart News.

The HSLDA is posing the question: Is this what normalization looks like?

“The Obama administration argued that normal relations with Cuba would lead to improved conditions for Cubans,” Donnelly wrote on the HSLDA website. “But things have not gotten better for homeschoolers.”

“A government that is unwilling to trust its citizens to homeschool is not worthy of trust from its citizens,” Donnelly wrote.

“We hope that members of Congress and the Trump administration will take an interest in this case and take action to defend the Rigals and others like them.”