CUBA
Blogger can't come to U.S. for prize
BY ANNE-MARIE GARCIA
Associated Press
HAVANA -- A Cuban blogger who has become an international sensation for
offering frank criticism of her country's communist system said she was
denied government permission Monday to travel to New York to receive a
top journalism prize.
Yoani Sanchez had hoped to go to Columbia University for a ceremony
Wednesday to receive her Maria Moors Cabot Prize, the oldest
international award in journalism. ``Immigration just confirmed that I
remain prohibited from leaving the country,'' she posted on her
``Generation Y'' blog.
There was no confirmation from the government, but Cuban authorities
almost never comment on such matters.
Sanchez's husband, Reynaldo Escobar, who uses his own blog to provide
searing criticism of everyday life in Cuba, said in a phone interview
that his wife spent the morning discussing her travel request with
immigration officials, then posted word of the denial.
In May, Cuban authorities denied Sanchez permission to fly to Madrid to
accept the Ortega y Gasset Prize in digital journalism for creating
Generation Y, which gets more than 1 million hits a month. Around the
same time, Time magazine deemed Sanchez one of the world's 100 most
influential people.
In initially announcing the winners in July, Columbia said it was
extending Sanchez a ``special citation for journalistic excellence.''
Sanchez uses her blog, started in April 2007, to offer simple but
compelling insights into modern Cuba and isn't afraid to criticize the
country's totalitarian system, its poverty or the chronically low morale
and disillusionment many of its citizens struggle to overcome.
She is one of the few Cubans who dares denounce Cuba's single-party
government so openly, though she enjoys more of a following off the
island than on it. Internet access to the blog is often blocked in Cuba.
Sanchez blames the government, which has refused to comment.
Blogger can't come to U.S. for prize - Americas - MiamiHerald.com (13
October 2009)
http://www.miamiherald.com/news/americas/story/1279547.html
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