Anti-Castro Cuban Blogger Arrested, Beaten and Released

I first blogged about Yoani Sanchez in June of 2008.  Now she's in the news.

From the Miami Herald:
Famed Cuban blogger Yoani Sanchez said Friday she and another blogger were punched and thrown violently into a car by presumed state security agents as they walked to participate in a peaceful march in downtown Havana.

``No blood, but black and blues, punches, pulled hairs, blows to the head, kidneys, knee and chest,'' Sánchez told El Nuevo Herald shortly after she and Orlando Luis Pardo were freed. ``In sum, professional violence.''

``I, being a person of verbal pacifism, am shaken by this violence, because violence silences anyone,'' the blogger declared in a telephone interview.

Read it all here.

Secretly Blogging from Cuba

From NoSheeples:

When Yoani Sanchez, 32, wants to update her blog about daily life in Cuba, she dresses like a tourist and strides confidently into a Havana hotel, greeting the staff in German. That is because Cubans like Sanchez are not authorized to use hotel Internet connections, which are reserved for foreigners.

Sanchez blogs rather well, with a worldwide readership. The circumstances of her life, combined with her words and her incisive intelligence, make her someone worth reading. They also make her someone to fear, particularly if you are a Cuban official who’s only longing and intention is to maintain order and preserve the status quo. Dictatorships will smile benignly on philosophers and thinkers who fuss about grand issues like freedom, censorship and ineffective government using large, rectangular words. But when pretty young bloggers begin to describe the realities of life in words everyone can understand - toasters and oxen and lemons and milk - dictatorships pay attention.

Read it all.