Freedom House: Yoani Sanchez World Tour Review

There is so much to write about Yoani Sanchez’ global tour that it is just better to click on the Freedom House summary   rather than have me copy a bunch of excerpts.

Through Digital Media, Activist Yoani Sánchez Redefines the Borders of Cuban Civil Society

March 21 marked the end of the New York leg of Cuban blogger and activist Yoani Sánchez’s highly publicized international tour. Since beginning the 80-day, 12-country whirlwind of speaking engagements in February, Sánchez, whose blog Generación Y is now translated into nearly 20 languages, has been met with equal measures of protest and warmth in Brazil, Mexico, Europe, and the United States. Arguably the most influential blogger writing within Cuba, Sánchez was denied an exit visa 21 times over the last five years, but she finally received permission to leave the island last month under a broader government initiative to loosen travel restrictions.

While Sánchez’s success in securing a passport after years of formal requests is significant, it would be a mistake to view the shift in exit requirements—or the recent activation of a highly anticipated fiber-optic cable (ALBA-1) to enhance the island’s internet connectivity—as evidence of a sea change in the regime’s attitude toward civil liberties such as freedom of movement and access to information.

Rest of story here.

Cuban diplomats try to spike Sanchez UN visit

Cuban blogger and dissident Yoani Sanchez was the guest of the United Nations Correspondents Association this week.

The visit was part of Sanchez’s world tour now that exit visas are no longer required to travel outside the country.

But just because the exit visa law was changed does not mean the Cuban government has changed its views about dissidents.

In just about every country Sanchez visited, pro-Cuban forces showed up calling her a tool or mercenary of the United States. In Brazil, she was not able to view a film about her and other dissidents because of the demonstrations. At least Yoani saw the demonstrations for what they were: examples of people exercising their democratic rights to demonstrate for or against a particular point of view. Of course, the irony of the situation was lost on the pro-Cuba demonstrators. They would never have been able to mount similar demonstrations against a Cuban policy in Cuba. 

Cuban diplomats around the world were always suspected of being behind demonstrations. (The themes were universal around the world and the props were all the same. Too much uniformity for “spontaneous” demonstrations of “outrage” against Sanchez.) Finally, in New York, the Cuban government came out from behind the curtain.

The UNCA sponsored a press conference for Sanchez in the United Nations building, something that is pretty common.

Cuban Ambassador Rodolfo Reyes sent a letter to the U.N. Secretary General complaining the news conference would be “an anti-Cuban action” and a “grave attack” on the spirit of the United Nations. (He did not mention how dictatorships, such as Cuba’s, are also an attack on the spirit of the United Nations.) The ambassador continued that the U.N. should “not allow that the organization’s spaces to be tarnished and their use manipulated by spurious interests.”

Havana diplomats at UN try to block Cuban blogger’s news conference

Sanchez responded simply that it was time for the United Nations to “come out of its lethargy and recognize that the Cuban government is a dictatorship.”

“If this meeting was being held in the bottom of an elevator shaft, we would have more freedom than in Cuba,” she added. “I am proud that my first time in this very significant U.N. building is with my journalism colleagues.”

It is a pity that the Sanchez world tour — hell, even the U.S portion — is getting so little coverage by U.S. media. The exceptions are The Miami Herald (duh!) and Fox News Latino (double duh!). There are the occasional wire stories — as in McClatchy story linked above — but other than that, the presence of one of the most powerful and rational voices against the Cuban dictatorship is moving through Washington and New York with little attention by the mainstream press.

Why is her visit important?

To begin with Sanchez could only leave once Cuba repealed the exit visa requirement. That requirement alone should tell people more about what Cuba was and is than anything else. Only dictatorships require exit visas of its people. The fact that the Cuban government eliminated the exit requirement is a story about changes taking place in that country.

While the exit visa requirement removal is a big deal, the increased repression of freedom of expression activists in Cuba is also news. More people can leave (if they can get a passport, another problem), but only if they are not in jail or under indictment for “activities against the state.”

Freedom of expression is still stifled:

• Committee to Protect Journalists: Though Cuba projected an image of a nation opening up economically and politically, it took no substantive steps to promote freedom of expression.
• Freedom House: Cuba has the most restrictive laws on free speech and press freedom in the Americas. The constitution prohibits private ownership of media outlets and allows free speech and journalism only if they “conform to the aims of a socialist society.”
• Human Rights Watch: Cuba remains the only country in Latin America that represses virtually all forms of political dissent.
• Amnesty International: The Cuban authorities continued to stifle freedom of expression, association and assembly, in spite of the much publicized releases of prominent dissidents. Hundreds of pro-democracy activists and dissidents suffered harassment, intimidation and arbitrary arrest.

What does this mean to the average person in the United States?

For too many people in the U.S. population (and in Congress) the only Latin American countries worth noting are Cuba and Mexico, and Mexico often comes in as a second thought.

Irrational and emotional arguments are a dime a dozen when dealing with Cuba. Finally, there is a rational voice from Cuba that is highly critical of the Cuban government allowed to travel and she gets little or no coverage — again, with the exception of the Miami Herald.

The Herald sees the immediate connection between the Sanchez tour and its audience. But where are the stories from the New Jersey/New York papers? The second largest Cuban population in the United States is in New Jersey.

Apologists for Cuba (and Venezuela and Ecuador) will not want to hear what Sanchez has to say, nor will they agree with it. Likewise, the rabid right-wing anti-Castro crowd will have difficulties with some of what Sanchez is saying — other than her unwavering belief in freedom of expression and democracy. Too many of the older anti-Castro group are hung up on returning property taken in the 1959 revolution. The issues are different now and many younger Cuban Americans know that. The anti-Castro lobby in Congress has not yet seemed to catch up.

It would be nice to see some stories of Cuban immigrants in the United States about how they got into the country, why the came and what they see as their future and the future of Cuba. I have talked with younger Cuban immigrants. They came to the States for the same reason most immigrants come: freedom and a better life. They are not from the elite families of the old dictatorship looking to return to power. They are immigrants, pure and simple.

Yes, they have opinions about the changes that should be made in Cuba — after all they still have family there. But if reporters took a few minutes to think about it, the stories of the 21st century immigrants will be different from those of the mid-20th century.

And once their stories are heard, then more people will stop thinking about Cuba and relations with Cuba with a Cold War mentality. They might even start looking at Cuba the same way the look at China, another brutal dictatorship that is famous for repression of freedom of speech and press, but with whom the U.S. is more than happy to deal with on the international scene.

UPDATE: Yoani Sanchez heckled & praised in Brazilian congress

The latest in the Sanchez world trip has the blog writer and Cuban dissident showing that many in Brazil have not grown past the rhetoric of the Cold War.

[T]hose on the left hailing Cuba as a victim of U.S. aggression against communism while others praised Sanchez for fighting against political repression on the island.

“Mercenary, go to Disney,” shouted those opposed to her visit, repeating the Cuban government’s view that all dissidents on the island are on the payroll of its ideological archenemy, the United States.

At the same time others called out the Castro government as a dictatorship.

Cuban dissident blogger inflames splits in Brazil’s Congress

It is just as sad to see so many on the left in the Brazilian Congress fail to see reality and to get past the rhetoric of the Cold War as it is to see conservatives in the U.S. Congress also fail to get past the rhetoric of the Cold War.

Guess refusal to see facts is not limited to just one ideology.

Yoani Sanchez’s world tour starts with protests in Brazil

Cuban blogger Yoani Sanchez was blocked from seeing a film that featured her by protesters supporting the Cuban government. According the AP reports in Brazil say the Cuban embassy in Brasilia was instrumental in helping organize the demonstrations.

Oddly enough those complaining about Sanchez — for pointing out the lack of freedom in Cuba — have the right to demonstrate against here because Brazil is a democracy that tolerates dissent. Too bad that Pres. Dilma Rouseff did not speak out against this violation of Sanchez’s right to speak. (There are also reports that help for the demonstrators came from the president’s office.) Rousseff was also quite about the Cuban government suppression and arrests of dissident bloggers during her visit to Cuba last year.

Sanchez was recently allowed to leave Cuba after the Raul Castro government changed its travel rules allowing people to now get passports without having to first pass a loyalty test.

She will move on to about a dozen other countries to talk with free speech/press organizations and supporters. In the United States she will visit the offices of Google and Twitter.

Sanchez regularly blogs at Generation Y.

Here’s hoping she gets the kind of coverage a brave person like her deserves in the U.S. media — and I mean the real press, not the right-wing blogs.

Cuban Internet link activated?

The BBC reports that maybe– just maybe — a high-speed Internet connection into Cuba has finally been activated. The report adds there appears to be no lag in transmission time due to censorship software, such as what happens in China.

But it is not all that great.

‘Curious’ Cuban net cable has activated, researchers say

Curiously, researchers noted traffic via the cable seemed only to be flowing into the country, not out of it.

“In the past week, our global monitoring system has picked up indications that this cable has finally been activated, although in a rather curious way,” wrote Doug Madory, Renesys’ senior researcher.

He explained that in the past week it had been noted that Telefonica, the Spanish telecoms company, had begun appearing in their data for Cuba.

When contacted by the BBC, Telefonica was not able to confirm that the activation had taken place.

But Renesys’ data is a strong indicator that the cable is beginning to show signs of life – be it over five years since its original inception.