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Yoani Sanchez

Yoani Sanchez

Posted May 7, 2009 | 11:52 PM (EST)

Tourist Apartheid Returns to Cuba, Hotel Cybercafes Block Access to Citizens


I have gone a couple of days without connecting to the Internet, because a new complication has appeared in the road of alternative bloggers. Several hotels in the country demand, in order to connect to the web, that you prove a life in a place outside the Cuban archipelago. The desk clerks tell me--even though they are just as native as I am--that that blue card will not allow me to dive into the vast World Wide Web. "It's a decision that comes from above," a woman says to me, as if a decision of this type could be taken at a level other than the offices of the government.

I see it will be hard to change myself into a foreigner overnight. So the only thing left is to protest against such a ban and to make public the existence of a new apartheid. I will have to go back in the guise of a tourist, although this time I will have to learn a language as complicated as Hungarian to fool those who sell the access cards. Maybe I can prowl around the hotels, ready to ask the foreigners to buy--for me--this forbidden entrance key, this safe conduct I need "to not be Cuban."

Yoani's blog, Generation Y, can be read here in English translation.

 
 
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05:10 AM on 05/12/2009
The re-imposition of internet apartheid at tourist hotels lends support to those who argued that the Castros regime would try to sabotage the recent overtures from the Obama administration on travel and remittances.
10:26 PM on 05/08/2009
I just read an article on the subject and was wondering what else is coming down the pike from the government in Cuba. I am wondering why they are trying to cut off communication. I doubt that they are negotiating internet rates with competitors..
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tonyfv
12:48 AM on 05/08/2009
Ah, freedom in the workers' paradise...