Cuban blogger Yoani Sanchez is impersonated on Twitter
BY JUAN O. TAMAYO
jtamayo@elnuevoherald.com
The tweets sent by Cuba's Yoani Sanches were bizarre, not at all in line
with the acerbic blasts at the government usually posted on the popular
Generation Y blog.
"The revolution continues,'' said one Tweet. Added another: "Seems it's
illegal to ... make counterrevolution. Ha Ha. As long as I am paid, I
continue.''
It was only after another Tweet asking for "money to connect to the
Internet'' that the real Yoani Sánchez — Sánchez with a Z, not with an S
— alerted her more than 100,000 Twitter followers Wednesday to the scam.
"My false profile on Twitter ... has my photo and asks for money ...
Everything a lie!,'' she messaged.
Sánchez also alerted that pro-government tweeters were using the hashtag
#OZT — Orlando Zapata Tamayo — to insult the former political prisoner
who became an icon of Cuba's human rights struggle when he died a year
ago Wednesday from a hunger strike.
So, who's Sanches with an S? That's unknown, but there are plenty of
suspects within the Cuban government, which clearly views the
independent blogosphere as a threat to the Castro revolution.
"One must always suspect the government, but it also could be the work
of its most entrenched supporters," said Reinaldo Escobar, an author,
independent blogger and husband of the real Yoani Sánchez.
On Feb. 4, a video leaked on the Internet showed a computer expert in
the Cuban intelligence services lecturing on the dangers presented by
bloggers like Sánchez and young exiles in Internet contact with their
counterparts on the island.
Five days later, however, the government stunned Sánchez and other
independent bloggers when it unblocked access from inside Cuba to her
Generation Y blog and more than 40 other Internet sites usually highly
critical of the communist system.
http://www.miamiherald.com/2011/02/24/2084101/cuban-blogger-yoani-sanchez-is.html
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