Cuba’s best-known blogger can’t be silenced

‘On a recent post, she talks about the wave of Cubans rushing to prove their Spanish heritage in order to gain citizenship in Spain amid ‘a lack of expectations and material hardship’ in Cuba. With irony and wit, she mocks the tangle of Cuban bureaucracy, the senseless privation of its citizens, and the way the state media views all of it through rose-colored glasses. Her entries are translated into English, French, Italian, German, and Polish.’ ‘In other words, she is not exactly the ambassador that Cuba –- with a tight grip on dissenters –- wants to present to the world. And yet, she reasoned, permission denied might garner so much media attention as to backfire in a Cuba trying to present its more tolerant face. After all, the Raúl Castro administration had just dropped bans on owning cellphones and computers. How could they deny a week-long trip to a well-known blogger who recently was named one of the most influential people in the world by Time magazine?’