Friday, February 3rd 2012 - 23:08 UTC

Cuba’s pro-democracy blogger denied permission to travel to Brazil

Cuba’s best-known pro-democracy blogger said she was denied permission to leave her country after Brazil granted her a visa ahead of President Dilma Rousseff’s state visit to the Castro brothers’ island last week.

“There’s no surprise,” said Yoani Sanchez

“There’s no surprise,” Yoani Sanchez said in a posting on her Twitter account on Friday. “They again deny me permission to leave. It’s the 19th time they violate my right to enter and leave my country.”

Sanchez, a critic of Raul Castro’s government on her Generation Y blog, requested permission to travel to Brazil next month so she could attend the screening of a documentary in which she appears. While she’s been barred from leaving Cuba for the past four years, expectations she might be allowed to exit this time increased after Brazil granted her a visa on the eve of Rousseff’s visit this week.

After Rousseff failed to meet with Sanchez and other activists during the three-day trade mission to Havana, the blogger complained on Twitter that the Brazilian president came to Cuba “with her wallet open and her eyes shut.”

Rousseff, who was inspired by Cuba’s revolution to take up arms against Brazil’s military dictatorship in the 1960s, said she would not get involved in what is an internal Cuban matter.

“Brazil gave the visa to the blogger,” she told reporters in Havana. “The rest is not a matter for the Brazilian government”.

While blocked from traveling abroad, Sanchez openly criticizes Castro’s government online, and has emerged as a leader among a group of young dissidents who describe the daily travails life in Cuba through difficult-to-access social media.

She was invited to Spain after winning the Ortega y Gasset journalism prize in 2008. Many of her chronicles are published by newspapers throughout Latin America.
 

Published in: Politics, Brazil, Latin America.
Tags: Brazil, Cuba, Generation Y blog, Raúl Castro, Yoani Sanchez.

3 comments Feed

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1 BenC30 (#) Feb 03rd, 2012 - 11:25 pm Report abuse
South America has some real problems with democracy and human rights.
It is like they are third world countries.... oh wait.... they are!
2 Fido Dido (#) Feb 04th, 2012 - 04:38 am Report abuse
Ben, seriously, ignorants like you make us up north only look bad and idiots like you need to stop typing nonsense about nations they never visted. You also need to understand that a third world nation is nation that has to many idiots that blabbers to much rather than focus on their own “human rights” violations. Great examples are in Europe and where I live, the US. Stop drinking diet coke BenC30 and wake up.
3 ChrisR (#) Feb 05th, 2012 - 01:42 pm Report abuse
The 'Fabled' Fido Dido, the exponent of all that is right to live in Argentina!

So you live in the USA and NOT Argentina? I wonder why not?

Could it be you have a happier, more prosperous life than you could ever have in Argentina?

Do tell, I am waiting to learn!

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