Cuban bloger Sanchez named IPI press freedom hero
Cuban blogger Yoani Sanchez was named World Press Freedom Hero by media
watchdog IPI on Friday, for her defiance of press restrictions and her
commitment to free speech in her country.
"Sanchezs tremendously important work provides a glimpse into what is
otherwise a closed world," Alison Bethel McKenzie, director of the
Vienna-based International Press Institute, said in a statement.
She "represents a future where the power of the Internet can be
harnessed to promote free speech."
Sanchez began a blog, Generation Y, in 2007 that now counts over one
million readers. However, access to the site was banned in Cuba in 2008.
To bypass this, Sanchez now emails her comments to friends abroad who
post her notes on the Internet.
In 2008, Time Magazine in the United States named her one of the 100
most influential people. The following year, her blog was listed as one
of the 25 best blogs of the year by the magazine.
Harassed and beaten up on separate occasions, Sanchez has noted on her
blog that she is constantly watched by state security agents.
But she refuses to stop writing: "If you are insulted by the mediocre,
the opportunists, if you are slandered by the employees of the powerful
but dying machinery, take it as a compliment," she wrote.
IPI named this year eight World Press Freedom Heroes, from Sri Lanka and
Gambia to Turkey and South Africa, bringing the total to 60 as it
celebrates its 60th anniversary.
The institute holds its annual world congress in Vienna and Bratislava
on September 11-14.
http://news.xin.msn.com/en/sci-tech/article.aspx?cp-documentid=4314747
No comments:
Post a Comment