Cuba says blogger ran afoul of the law

[Bacchus39]

Source: AP


Cuba says blogger ran afoul of the law

WILL WEISSERT, Associated Press Writer Will Weissert, Associated Press Writer – 1 hr 41 mins agoHAVANA – 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."





Read more: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20081205/ap_on_re_la_am_ca/c...

[zelta gaisma]

1. i wonder what law they broke and how it was wordedand if it was actually broken or just bent

[ben_meyers]

2. It's lucky that she isn't in this country

criticizing Bushco, she would have been rounded up and sent to one of those Walmart/Blackwater re-education camps. At least in Cuba they let her run free with just a little warning.

[Bacchus39]

3. yeah, I'm sure she is feeling lucky right now n/t

s

[jrockford]

8. Ever been to Cuba after the Mafia was driven out? nt

[tonka023]

10. Cuba

I was there a few months ago. It was a wonderful
place and very sane. Felt much safer than any other
time I've travelled. Very clean, amazingly well educated
people, universal health care. Everybody takes care of
each other. Every place has it's problems, but it was a
sane place and not at all what the MSM would have you
believe.

Too bad about this, but I wonder if there isn't more
to it? Even if there isn't, I don't think it's enough to
condemn the place. When I lived in the US, everyone
around me was afraid to be too vocal about talking
bad about Bushco. I thought they were just paranoid
... at first.

[Nexus7]

4. Or worse yet, had a lawsuit filed against you

After all, who know what the limits are in a nation without the right of habeas corpus?

[arcos]

7. Right, just like Skinner, huh?

And Markos Moulitsas, and John Aravosis, and Jerome Armstrong, and Arianna Huffington....

[Billy Burnett]

11. What are you saying? Yoani's blog site is still up and running.

Certain anti Cuba DUers in the past posted false AP and Miami Herald stories saying that her blog was blocked by the Cuban government. The story circulated around the RW echo chamber in hours.

Some DUers fell for the story, pounding away at their keyboards with uninformed anti Cuba BS. That is until DUer Mika posted the link to her up-and-running blog site.

The URL had changed after she had to switch providers due to increased traffic. The old link didn't work, so the knuckle draggers were sure that Castro blocked it.

Never was blocked, but that didn't stop the AP and Miami Herald from reporting that "some people said" that it was.

Her blog site is still up and running.

[arcos]

12. Nowhere in the link does it say her blog was blocked...

She was not allowed to travel to a bloggers workshop.

[Billy Burnett]

13. "She was not allowed to travel to a bloggers workshop." Not true.

She and her husband were advised not to. They weren't banned from it. They have been made aware of the danger of associating with groups working to overthrow the system of government in Cuba. Yoani herself has dissed these foreign operators and the Cuban groups that work at their behest. As the OP article indicates, the bloggers meeting wasn't being busted up, and they were going to meet close by elsewhere. It's interesting that government officials would give some of them advanced warning instead of entrapping them. Seems as though the government doesn't want Yoani to get involved with foreign funded traitorous groups that would contaminate her otherwise principled stances and her blogsite.

Also of note in the OP article (bold = mine)...

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."

~~

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.

Anyone familiar with the goings on in Cuba are aware that the US government, Miami exile groups connected with terrorists, some representatives of the the Czech gov (a conduit for US/exile anti Cuba activity), and certain elements of the Catholic church, are collectively generally referred to as "elements of the counterrevolution". Elements of the counterrevolution are foreign funded groups working to overthrow the system of government in Cuba - activity that would be considered traitorous in most any nation, including the US. Dagoberto Valdes was removed from his post because his involvement with these groups by the Church, not by the government.

[arcos]

14. Look, I'm not anti-Castro...

But do you really think they are doing this in her best interest? It is very clear to me this is, at the very least, harassment.

You don't have to be anti-Castro to not like some of his policies. And I personally think that although both Fidel and Raúl are popular and loved by most of the Cuban people, Cuba lacks lots of basic human rights, and I don't like that.

And I guess you forgot to put in bold the very first sentences of the article: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.

[Mika]

15. Poster never accused you of that.

How is it clearly harassment? If the Cuban government wanted to they could have decided to not warn her. Maybe she was unaware of the involvement of foreign funded traitorous operatives with the workshop. The government knows of her usually anti foreign operatives stance in her blogs. You'll note in the article that they will meet bloggers, just not in the way originally planned. The cyber workshop wasn't cancelled either, which is an interesting detail.

Maybe, just maybe, Yoani's husband isn't telling us all (a CYA statement?), or maybe the AP hasn't reported all of the details (which wouldn't be a surprise in their Cuba reporting).

I feel that there is something odd about this story. Something's missing. Let's see if there is any follow up of this story.

[arcos]

16. You are right, the workshop is taking place, but...

why don't you head over to her blog and read what she has to say?


The reprimands of Wednesday

<snip>

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 appoximation 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.”

<snip>

http://desdecuba.com/generationy/?p=353


Friendly reminder? I think not. In the US, in Europe, in Central America, and certainly in Cuba this is called harassment.


Fine sand

Finally we are beginning the planned journey of the bloggers. The shouts delivered at the police station, the constant agent we’ve had with us since last Thursday, and the prohibition on travel to Pinar del Río weren’t much use. We ended up finding the cracks between the fingers of the censors, between which the fine sand of information and knowledge has managed to slip through.

<snip>

We managed to take the first step because “they” just waited for the challenge or the cancellation, but did not anticipate that in the blogger phenomenon there are a thousand ways to camouflage oneself. They used their old methods of coercion without realizing that nobody can put real reins on virtual creatures. By prohibiting the inaugural session, they’ve only managed to unveil how many possibilities there are to blur the itinerary without the need of moving from one province to another.

<snip>

http://desdecuba.com/generationy/?p=356

[Mika]

18. I read her blog regularly.

I have respect for Yoani. She firmly denounces foreign funded operatives. I think she got fair warning of the involvement of such entities in the workshop, such as Dagoberto Valdes.

So much for the brutal dictatorship. The workshop wasn't canceled. She mentions "the constant agent we’ve had with us since last Thursday", but that doesn't mean that an agent was posted at her doorstep monitoring her non blog related activities. She means the official assigned to her case. The bloggers have other means to communicate and hold their conference that the Cuban government could have censored or busted it up if they wanted to, but it wasn't.

Turns out that traveling to Pinar del Río wasn't even necessary. I haven't been able to talk to some of my friends who live there because the disasters have destroyed the telephone systems. The transportation infrastructure is badly off also. Prioritizing survival is the paramount modus operandi right now in Cuba. I'm pretty positive that is a consideration here. Seems that dark and sinister presumptions are often brought to the fore when Americans discuss Cuba topics, but on the ground the reality is different in my experience.

Still, there is something strange in the reports from her and her husband. Can't put my finger on it, but something's missing. Not much follow up by the media either.

Certainly in the US, in Europe, in Central America, and most certainly in Cuba there are legitimate concerns about foreign entities who seek to do harm to their nation, security is of concern. If the so called 'brutal dictatorship' had ill will towards her and her husband, as well as the others in their cadre of bloggers, they surely would be rounded up, arrested and interrogated. But that didn't happen. I'm willing to wait to see the outcome of this event before I condemn the Cuban government for giving her and a few others fair warning.

[Billy Burnett]

5. Headline misleading. Cuba didn't report this. Yoani's husband says it.

So every detail in the story must be true.

[Bacchus39]

6. yeah, its only true if the Cuban government says it

sorry, I forgot.

[jrockford]

9. Not what he was saying, but way to make a NON-point. Of course, it's easier to believe

propaganda about Cuba when you have some twisted agenda.

[JonQ]

17. Totally

And the North Korean government has never reported that it has ever done anything wrong. So we should ignore anyone who ever said otherwise.

Afterall, if you can't trust a government to announce when it has transgressed the rights of its citizens then who can you trust?

[Mika]

19. I guess that means that Hillary and Bill did do-in Vince Foster.

Always believe everything the opposition says.

[JonQ]

20. When the alternative is solely a state owned media

you really have to give the opposition the benefit of the doubt, and take what the state-controlled media has to say with a grain of salt.