Another Cuba Blockade: Prize-winning blogger kept from traveling
The first blogger to win the Mario Moors Cabot prize for reporting on Latin America and the Caribbean wasn’t there to receive her award when the honors were made this weekend.
Not because she didn’t want to be there, but because the government of her country would not allow her to travel to New York to take part in the ceremonies.
Yoani Sanchez is Cuban and her blog, Generación Y, comments on life in Cuba – often critically. So when Sanchez got the prize and was invited to New York, what did the Cuban government do – instead of congratulating her, they told her she had to stay put in Havana.
Reuters has reported that this was the fourth time Sanchez was denied permission to travel out of to Cuba – she has asked to go to Europe, Mexico and Brazil where she has also received international recognition for her work.
Sanchez is the first blogger to receive the Cabot award from Columbia University’s School of Journalism.