Cubans blocked from reading blog on island life, writer say

Cubans blocked from reading blog on island life, writer says
By Ray Sánchez | Havana Bureau
March 25, 2008

HAVANA - Yoani Sanchez, one of Cuba's most popular bloggers, said Cuban
authorities have blocked access from the island to her Web page about
everyday life in Cuba.

"So the anonymous censors of our famished cyberspace have tried to shut
me in a room, turn off the light and not let my friends in," Sanchez
wrote in her "Generacion Y" blog Monday.

Sanchez, 32, said Cubans trying to access her Web page (
www.desdecuba.com/generaciony) are either denied entry with an "error
downloading" message or must wait as long as half an hour for it to
open. The restriction also applies to other blogs on the Web page of
desdecuba.com, an online magazine, as well as several other sites.

"We're surprised it didn't happen sooner," said Sanchez's husband,
Reynaldo Escobar, an independent journalist. "It's interesting that at a
time when people are waiting for the government to lift restrictions,
they would apply more restrictions."

Sanchez said the aim of an Internet filter placed by censors on her page
is to block readership in Cuba, where people have limited access to the
Internet.

"I think this action is directed at a phenomenon that was getting out of
their hands," she said of government censors. "I don't think they're
coming after me personally. I think they're moving against a phenomenon
of which I am a part."

Philip Peters, a Cuba expert at the Lexington Institute, a think tank
outside Washington, said the openness of Cuba's new government will be
demonstrated by the fate of Sanchez's blog.

"It seems to me that her opportunity and her risk are both tied to the
fact that she is in unregulated territory," he said. "Her blog is
probably neither legal nor illegal, but it's certainly critical, and its
fate will tell a lot about the degree of criticism the Cuban government
is willing to allow — and whether it will allow criticism to flourish
outside of approved media."

Sanchez, a philology graduate who includes her full name and photo on
the site, has become one of Cuba's most popular bloggers, chronicling
daily life on the Communist island. She has criticized Raul Castro, who
formally took over from his ailing brother Fidel last month, for failing
to improve living standards.

"Who is the last in line for a toaster?" was the title of a recent blog
on the lifting of a ban on sales of computers, DVD players and other
appliances. Toasters will not be sold until 2010. The blog received 1.2
million hits in February.

"We have to wait and see what happens," Sanchez said, vowing to continue
posting her critical blogs.

Cuba's communications minister, Ramiro Valdes, a veteran of the 1959
revolution, told an international conference last year that the Internet
was "the wild colt of new technologies," adding that it "can and must be
controlled."

Only government employees, academics and researchers may have personal
Internet accounts provided by government servers.

Ordinary Cubans are allowed access to e-mail at local post offices and
other locations. They can view government approved Web sites through an
official Cuban "Intranet" that blocks pornography and anti-Castro Web sites.

Cuba defends its restrictions as necessary to block what it calls U.S.
efforts to undermine the government. It blames limited access on the
U.S. economic embargo, which prevents the country from linking to
underwater fiber-optic cables 12 miles offshore. Instead, Cuba must rely
on expensive satellite uplinks.

Ray Sánchez can be reached at rlsanchez@sun-sentinel.com.

http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/local/cuba/sfl-flrndcuba0325sbmar25,0,3221905.story