tagged w/ Ortega y Gasset Prize
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I swear I haven't run a green light, nor have I bought cheese on the black market for more than two months, and I have not walked out of any store without paying. I don't recall having violated the laws-too much-these last days, not even by passing myself off as a foreigner to use the Internet in some hotel.
I have, however, a citation, along with [my husband] Reinaldo, for tomorrow at the police station at 21st and C in Vedado. I wonder if I should bring a toothbrush or if I will get only a brief box on the ears.
Below is the official document I received from a sweaty official who ascended the fourteen flights of stairs, since I haven't had an elevator for a month.
At nine in the morning I'll know what it's about; wait for my news after two.
UPDATE:
At nine in the morning an official looks, with boredom, at the citation we have presented at the door of the 21st and C station. We are left waiting on one of the benches for about 40 minutes, while Reinaldo and I take the opportunity to discuss all those things the dizziness of daily life always keeps us from talking about. At 9:45 they take my husband, asking first if he has a cell phone. Ten minutes later they return and take me to the second floor.
The meeting is brief and the tone energetic. There are three of us in the office and the one who raises his voice in song has been introduced as Agent Roque. To my side another, younger one, watches me and says his name is Camilo. Both tell me they are from the Interior Ministry. They are not interested in listening, there is a written script on the table, and nothing I do will distract them. They are intimidation professionals.
The topic was as I expected: We are close to the date for the blogger meeting that, with neither secrecy nor publicity, we have been organizing for half a year; they announce we must cancel it. Half an hour later, now far from the uniforms and the photos of leaders on the walls, we reconstructed an approximation of their words:
We want to warn you that you have transgressed all the limits of tolerance with your rapprochement and contacts with counter-revolutionary elements. This totally disqualifies you for dialog with Cuban authorities.
The activities planned for the coming days cannot carried out.
We, for our part, will take all measures, make the relevant denuciations and take the necessary actions. This activity, in this moment in the life of the Nation, recuperating from two hurricanes, will not be allowed.
Roque stopped talking-nearly shouting-and I asked if he would give me all this in writing. Being a blogger who displays her name and her face has made me believe that everyone is willing to attach their identity to what they say. The man lost the rhythm of the script-he didn't expect my librarian's mania to keep papers. He stopped reading what had been written and shouted at me even louder that, "They are not obliged to give me anything."
Before they send me off with a "get out of here, citizen" I manage to tell him that he won't sign what he told me because he doesn't have the courage to do it. The word "Cowards" comes out almost in a guffaw. At the bottom of the stairs I hear the noise of the chairs pushed back into place. Wednesday has ended early.I swear I haven't run a green light, nor have I bought cheese on the black market... more
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Cuba says blogger ran afoul of the law
By WILL WEISSERT – 2 days ago
HAVANA (AP) — Police have prohibited Cuba's most prominent blogger from attending an independent cyber-workshop and warned that her activities ran afoul of the law, her husband said Friday.
Yoani Sanchez and husband and fellow blogger Reynaldo Escobar were summoned separately Wednesday to a police station near their apartment in Havana's Vedado district and reprimanded, Escobar said in a telephone interview.
Authorities told the couple they could not travel to the western province of Pinar del Rio for a two-day blogger's workshop scheduled to begin Friday night.
"We aren't attending the inauguration of the workshop, which has not been suspended. We've just changed the dynamic of how we are meeting," said Escobar, without elaborating.
An account of the reprimand appears on Sanchez's blog, "Generacion Y." The site was blocked to Internet users on the island Friday.
Sanchez wrote that police told her, "We want to warn you that you have transgressed all the limits of tolerance with your closeness and contact with elements of the counterrevolution."
Sanchez could not be reached Friday, and Cuba's government had no comment.
Another Havana blogger, Claudia Cadelo, was also called into a meeting with police, but failed to appear because she is in the hospital, Escobar said.
The gathering was supposed to involve about 20 bloggers and is being organized by Dagoberto Valdes, a Roman Catholic layman in Pinar del Rio. Valdes was the volunteer director of the church magazine Vitral, which gently called for more plurality and democratic participation, until he was removed from the post by the island's bishop in April 2007.
Valdes was traveling Friday, but his associate, Virgilio Toledo, said authorities in Pinar del Rio also advised two local activists against attending the workshop.
"They think it's an activity about human rights, which it's not," Toledo said.
The Communications Ministry put into effect a law this week that instructs the island's Internet providers to "prevent access to sites where the content is contrary to social interests, morals or good custom, as well as the use of applications that affect the integrity or security of the State."
Escobar said the police suggested Cuba was especially sensitive to criticism as it struggles to recover from the effects of three storms that hit in less than two months this hurricane season, causing more than $10 billion in damage.
Asked if Cuba could be in the midst of a cyber-crackdown, he said, "I don't know how far they will go."
"For dissidents who traditionally have been surrounded, things have gotten stricter," Escobar said, referring to a small group of activists who dare criticize the island's single-party system.
Cuba tolerates no organized political opposition and dismisses dissidents and activists as "mercenaries" who take money from the United States to undermine the communist system.
Sanchez's posts about the struggles of daily life on the island have made her a sensation overseas and she won Spain's Ortega y Gasset Prize for digital journalism.
According to her blog, police said that her activities had "totally nullified your ability to dialogue with Cuban authorities."
Access to the Internet is strictly controlled in Cuba and the government routinely blocks sites it considers too critical.Cuba says blogger ran afoul of the law
By WILL WEISSERT – 2 days ago... more
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