Yoani Sanchez, HuffPost Blogger In Cuba, Not Allowed To Accept Columbia Award

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 Wednesday ceremony 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 Generation Y, 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 and Sanchez blames the government, which has refused to comment.

Comments

[rocketman69]

Why would she want to leave all that great healthcare behind, even for a few days? She could have an accident and end up bankrupt or dead.

[LMPE]

Glenn Beck is the only person who should get stuck in Cuba. They'd probably deal with him in a timely manner.

[MacQ]

Wonder how those democratic congressmen of ours feel about this, after they went over there and declared it such a wonderful free and misunderstood place, and felt like talking to Fidel was like talking to an old friend (which it probably was).

[MIKEinNYC]

I don't get it.

Through the years the Castros and Guevera have been idealized and lionized.

For almost 50 years Cuba has been nothing more than a dictatorship run by unelected thugs who administer the country for the benefit of themselves and their cronies. And they don't run it that well.

If they opened their borders to emigration so many people would leave that there wouldn't be anyone left to turn the lights out, presuming of course that they have the electricity to run the lights.

[Y2KCockroach]

Um, maybe this will help, "MIKEinNYC": before the Castros and Guevara the country was STILL "nothing more than a dictatorship run by unelected thugs who administer(ed) the country for the benefit of themselves and their cronies. And they (didn't) run it that well". The only difference is that I am referring to the criminals who preceded Castro and his revolution; that would be the thug Batista, and the Mafia who kept him in power (e.g. Lansky, Costello, Genovese, Luciano and Trafficante). At least under Castro the kids get fed and schooled, and the poor get medical care. It may not be utopia, but it is seen by the majority of Cubans as a vast improvement over the U.S.A.-backed oligopoly that ruled the country before Castro. You see? It's not that hard to figure out, if you just remember your history....

[MIKEinNYC]

Sounds like you learned your history from Godfather 2.

The fact is you are right about the thugs who preceded the Castros but that doesn't excuse the Castros' actions or the fact that they've ruled with an unelected iron fist for 50 years.

[LetMeUnderstandThis]

The first clue was she didn't pack a thing except her passport, told everybody goodbye.

[royevatom]

I am so sorry that Yoani Sanchez will not get to visit NYC and accept this Award from Columbia. I don't care if she is a Cuban dissident or journalist. I do care that when I read her writing I recognize something there that I have seen in Hemingway, in Conrad, in Matthiessen, and others, perhaps this is one of the reasons she is being recognized. I for one think she should be assisted and allowed to write as much as she will about all that she will.
Some of you, Please try not to be so small.

[royevatom]

The truth comes slithering.
As a snake.
With obsidian eyes.
You stink of fear.
And crawl away.

[jmcauliff]

Yoani Sanchez should have been given an exit permit to travel to New York, just as the New York Philharmonic should have been granted an exit permit, a.k.a. travel license, to go to Cuba with the voting members of its not-for-profit Society.

http://thehavananote.com/2009/10/ny_philharmonic_concert_sabota.html

http://thehavananote.com/2009/10/canf_opposes_ny_philharmonic_d_1.html

Better yet, both governments should allow freedom of travel to their citizens.

Tell the White House to set the example http://www.whitehouse.gov/ope/contact/

John McAuliff
Fund for Reconciliation and Development

[ailbhe]

I would hate to live in a country where I needed 'permission to travel'. That is tyranny.

The Fidel fans ignore the oppression of ordinary people who have to live under that dictatorship.

[shelby35]

Sad but true. Just like the Repugs worship the tyranny that is the Honduran coup government, left wingers back people like Castro and Mugabe apologizing for past wrongs and rationalizing despotic behavior and oppression.

[ailbhe]

Yep

[MacQ]

Not everyone sees the Honduran situation the way you do. The Honduran Supreme Court ruled that Zelaya was acting unconstitutionally, and had him removed from office. Essentially, he was impeached. What was done, was done according to their law, not some revolutionary coup, as some would like to portray it. Might want to read up on it.

[jmcauliff]

See my adjacent posted comment. Do you apply this same criteria to the US?

"I would hate to live in a country where I needed 'permission to travel'. That is tyranny."

John McAuliff

[PRONESE]

The Cuban Government knows..
*
*
If she leaves the Island to receive the Columbia Award, She will not return to share it with her country.
*
Posish!
*
R/ PRONESE

[eweqo]

Fidel is one of obama's mentors. He hopes to be like castro one day and be the maximum leader of america.

[zola77]

Go away if you have nothing useful to add to the discussion.

[tailgateshirts]

funny -- sure looked like Bush/Cheney were crafting policies to make them supreme leader

[bobo5]

Costa Rica is the coolest country of them all. I don't mean climate either.

[shelby35]

Agreed. Costa Rica is a model nation of development in a sea of tyranny and anarchy.

[royevatom]

From what I understand to go to and stay in Costa Rica you Have to prove that you have 125,000$ in the bank. Cool place, the don't want you if you can't afford to pay the golf fees.

[Balzac]

Reinaldo Escobar (husband) says: "she writes for the sole purpose, confessed repeated times, of vomiting everything in our reality that nauseates her."

There's a pill for that.

[steamboat]

Yoani is the person who should have won the Nobel Peace Prize, not Obama.

[juhar]

Oh please, spare us.

Obama's critics are coming up with what he should do with the prize money. Who he should dedicate the award to, who he should take with him.

Oh please, folks. He won the 2008 presidential election and the 2009 Nobel Prize for Peace.

[juhar]

And there is much more to come.

[ObamAtomic]

You are hurting,You wished daddy bush won the prize,eh! Too bad!

[steamboat]

Not at all. I'm no Bush fan (either one).....But tell me why its Obama? Please, please tell me his great accomplishments? His great act of humanity? Please, I'm all ears---tell me?

Personally, while prima donna's like George Clooney was writing articles on this blog from his Hollywood that we need to do something about Darfur, former senator Dr. Bill Frist was THERE in the Sudan and Darfur, unselfishly giving healthcare to the masses for 9 months (and without fanfare). Then as soon as the election is over and his guy won, Clooney is off to Italy and never mentions Darfur again..... Maybe Frist should have won the Nobel Peace Prize.

[shelby35]

There's always next year.

[HeavyDuty]

I'm sure that when normal relations are established between Cuba and the US, both sides will allow its citizens to travel with proper documentation to receive prizes and awards on both sides of the Strait of Florida. That includes many Cuban artists and performers denied the right to pick up Emmys or Cuban scientists (yes, there are many who are world class!) denied participation in international scientific events.
By the way, one of the Cuban Five Antiterrorist prisioners in the US has been denied a visit from his wife for TEN YEARS.
In the meantime, the US will pick and choose who will, among its citizens, visit the Socialist Island and Cuba will do the same.
It woul be interesting to read Ms Sanchez's comments on the right of Americans to visit Cuba and see with their own eyes how good of a storyteller she is.

[zola77]

Fantastic post.

[piul05]

Good post.

A couple of things come to mind; one, the NY Philharmonic Orchestra - did she have any qualms about them being prevented form going to Cuba?

Two, Americans don't go to Cuba but Europeans, South Americans, Canadians, etc do; at least eight close friends of mine - Portuguese, Scottish, English, Brazilian, German - have visited the country. One elderly British couple goes there every year because they love the music - they now stay with friends they made on the island. I've worked with Cubans in the Iberian Peninsula and am acquainted with a few who opened businesses there.

What do these people have in common? Their narrative is fairly different from that of Ms. Sanchez.

[royevatom]

It is interesting what your post is saying, but not as interesting as what you are not saying.

[culturevue]

How refreshing to read a really balanced opinion from someone who is aware of other related facts.

[shelby35]

Those five were spies. SPIES. There is a law against spying even if it is from a friendly country. Heck we've imprisoned John Pollard for spying for Israel and they are our ally. True some Jews want his release; I'm opposed to it vociferously. Spying for another country deserves punishment and the calling these spies anti-terrorists is a joke.

[GoodFeathers]

Man, that woman in the picture is literally skin and bone.

[HeavyDuty]

Yes, she certainly does appeal to your emotions.
So did former Reagan administration US Ambassador to the UN Armando Valladares, whose gimmick as a "political prisoner" was to write a book of poems circulated by right wing exiles called "From my Wheelchair" in which the supposed paralysed poet sang to Freedom.
Well, it turned out that Mr Valladares, a former Batista policeman, was neither a poet nor was he really confined to a wheelchair.
Mr Valladares was recently named as one of the people involved in a plot to assasinate Pres. Evo Morales of Bolivia.
Is Ms. Sanchez really suffering from malnutrition? Only time will tell!

[ObamAtomic]

I guess you never been to European city.
Is a matter a taste,she is fine the way she is.
You are attracted to meat on the bones

[bobo5]

That's what high fructose corn syrup deprivation can do to you. Thank God we live in Monsanto country.

[royevatom]

She is a CIA spy.
She is not a Journalist.
She posts rants and apocalytic prophecies.
She is the Cuban Glen Beck!

Who are you people?
Are you all so completely ignorant?

READ HER BLOG!

[shelby35]

You're closer to Glenn Beck making outlandish claims. I bet Mugabe and Castro decorate your walls.