The treasure of Freedom of speech

Never have I been so conscious of how important liberty of speech is as these days. Cuban blogger Yoani Sánchez is releasing an avalanche of tweets about her frustration of not being able to enter the internet when she wants and not being able to read the news.

Yoani Sánchez can’t leave Cuba

Cuba’s most famous blogger, Yoani Sánchez, is going to celebrate her Maria Moors Cabot Prize at her home in Havana. The Castro government doesn’t allow her to leave the country to receive the prize. Neither can she travel to Brazil where she was going to present her book, Cuba Libre, and speak in Congress.

‘Juanes’s nerves got the better of him’

A few days after Colombian singer Juanes‘s Peace without Borders concert in Havana several media published about trouble with the Cuban regime before the concert. Juanes felt he was being followed and made a row about it. The Cuban government answered that his nerves got the better of him and caused an outburst against the hotel ‘personnel’ that was controlling him.

Juanes disappoints with his concert in Havana

A bit disappointing, Colombia’s singer Juanes‘s Peace without Borders concert in Cuba’s capital Havana until now. He and the other musicians don’t go any further than talking about love and peace. Singer Cucu Diamantes even said that the world had to open to Cuba. “It is the language that is used in a beauty contest”, an editor of El Nuevo Herald said to tv station América TeVe. Only in a song with the Spanish singer Miguel Bosé Juanes sang about ‘an island in the middle of the sea that cries for freedom’. 

Juanes should call for freedom

One of Colombia’s most famous singers, Juanes, is going to sing in Cuba’s capital Havana next Sunday, together with like 10 or 15 other singers from Spain and Latin America. Many have criticized him, because the concert will be on the Plaza de la Revolución and because it can be interpreted as a support of the Castro regime in Cuba.

Now it is Iran, tomorrow Cuba?

Interesting the protests which are going on in Iran after Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was reelected. It is possible that they will go on for quite a time. And even Twitter plays a part, now that the government has severely limited the possibilities of journalists to do their work. The Cuban blogger Yoani Sánchez draws a parallel between Cuba and Iran.

Iranian women, painted in 1669

Berlin Wall in Cuba

When the new president Funes was inaugurated in El Salvador, Cuba was an important item. Access to the Organisation of American States was discussed. The New York Times mentioned a ‘New Sign of Thaw’ in the relation between the United States of Obama and Cuba. In the meantime Cuba’s blogger Yoani Sánchez wrote a sad post on her blog.

Cubans don’t have access to internet

Through  Twitter I saw a You Tube Video showing how a Cuban in a hotel in Havana tried to get access to internet.

Protest with pots and pans in Cuba

That is the proposal of Cuba’s famous blogger Yoani Sánchez on Twitter for the First of May, Labour Day. The protest is meant against migration restrictions on the island.

Che Guevara’s grandson can’t go to Cuba

Today I was struck by an interview in Venezuela’s daily El Nacional with Che Guevara‘s grandson Canek Sánchez Guevara. Firstly because I didn’t know he existed. He said he didn’t agree with the Castro regime in Cuba, which ‘has behaved like a monarchy’. But  Canek (1974) wouldn’t like being called Che Guevara’s grandson, because he hasn’t ever known his grandfather, who already had died when he was born. In an interview he said “Che means less to me than my other grandfather with whom I could play and laugh.”