Blogger Seized From Streets of Havana, Beaten, Released

Yoani Sánchez is the most well-known Cuban blogger

By JANIE CAMPBELL

Updated 6:44 AM EST, Mon, Nov 9, 2009

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safe-democracy.org

Was it something she spelled?

Trail-blazing Cuban blogger Yoani Sánchez says she was headed to a peaceable march against violence with friends in Havana Friday when she and fellow writer Orlando Luis Pardo were confronted by three men in plainclothes presumed to be state security, forced into a car, and assaulted.

"No blood," she reported to El Nuevo Herald. "But black and blues, punches, pulled hairs, blows to the head, kidneys, knee and chest...[after being] thrown head-first inside, they applied judo or karate holds to us and the punches . . . kept raining down."

Sánchez says she and Pardo were driven around for about 20 minutes before being "violently thrown on the street" near where they were first accosted. Their friends reported being taken to a police station in a second car, where they were questioned and released.

The group was en route to an event its organizers, local musicians, termed "a peaceful performance-march -- neither a protest nor a political demand." A previous gathering had included group theatre but was uneventful.

Since she began signing her name to blog posts she composes in Cuba and e-mails to friends in other countries for publication, Sánchez has received critical acclaim and several awards for her social commentary and missives about every day life on the island from the government to food to baseball. Though awarded Spain's Ortega y Gasset Journalism Award and Columbia University's Maria Moors Cabot Prize, she has been denied permission to leave Cuba to accept. In 2008, Sánchez, a philologist by training, was named one of TIME Magazine's 100 Most Influential People.

Sánchez said the motivation behind the "professional violence" was "evidently" to keep her from participating in the anti-violence march. "Anything else would be pure speculation.''

First Published: Nov 7, 2009 1:52 PM EST

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As****"},{"anonName":null,"pathToMedia":"434889_69466567","adminTags":null,"views":1339,"createdBy":15774997,"createdByPathToPhoto":"116995/icons/defaultMember_116995_portrait.jpg","assocMediaId":null,"mediaName":"Cuban Blogger Yoani S�nchez Seized, Punched, Released","parentThreadId":null,"mediaId":2674497,"tags":null,"anonSiteUrl":null,"assocMediaType":null,"createdAt":"9 Nov 2009 14:19:48 GMT","anonEmail":null,"isVisible":true,"approved":true,"numComments":5,"reviewed":true,"createdByUsername":"Editorial_Response","pathToPreview":"","mediaType":"EXTERNALMEDIA","commentId":"1213196","subject":"","averageRating":0,"body":"And this information makes the NBC Miami site, and gets linked to by Drudge Report? In late 2002, on the Yahoo! Financial system, under the ticker of a company that I had worked for, I posted TWICE about getting screwed out of more than $15,000 in verbal agreements that I had made and got screwed out of by a biotech in Silicon Valley, California for services rendered while working as a system administrator. My goal was to force the company to make full payment to me as soon as possible due to the fact that the business unit was going out of business. The FBI called me up on the phone, and asked me to meet with them based on what I had posted...they said they wanted to talk to me about it. Thinking that the FBI would like to hear about this and all other fraud at the site, I eagerly went to speak to them. Once in their offices, it seemed like at least one or more FULL hour of violent confrontational, to of the lung, screaming, good cop bad cop, physical charging at me, grabbing my shirt, acting like they were going to beat me......and for that entire time they would not let me go until I promised I would not go back on the Internet and say any more about what I knew about the operations of that site, I was only allowed to litigate them in the courts. WELCOME TO CUBA BABY! "},{"anonName":null,"pathToMedia":"434889_69466567","adminTags":null,"views":1339,"createdBy":7918844,"createdByPathToPhoto":"116995/icons/defaultMember_116995_portrait.jpg","assocMediaId":null,"mediaName":"Cuban Blogger Yoani S�nchez Seized, Punched, Released","parentThreadId":null,"mediaId":2674497,"tags":null,"anonSiteUrl":null,"assocMediaType":null,"createdAt":"9 Nov 2009 14:56:32 GMT","anonEmail":null,"isVisible":true,"approved":true,"numComments":5,"reviewed":true,"createdByUsername":"anonymous_user","pathToPreview":"","mediaType":"EXTERNALMEDIA","commentId":"1213376","subject":"","averageRating":0,"body":"Most of us are already aware of the communist police state in Cuba. There are thousands of Cubans who risked their lives to escape tyranny who can attest to poverty and hopelessness, prisons and no freedoms there. Our internet czar will be coming down on the net as promised. Most individuals speaking out against the growing oppression here in the U.S. may see a Chavez like world HIS minions did not expect. They wanted Hope and Change also. yea, right. Ones standing up for the people, not the elites, are ridiculed. "},{"anonName":null,"pathToMedia":"434889_69466567","adminTags":null,"views":1339,"createdBy":7918844,"createdByPathToPhoto":"116995/icons/defaultMember_116995_portrait.jpg","assocMediaId":null,"mediaName":"Cuban Blogger Yoani S�nchez Seized, Punched, Released","parentThreadId":null,"mediaId":2674497,"tags":null,"anonSiteUrl":null,"assocMediaType":null,"createdAt":"9 Nov 2009 14:59:26 GMT","anonEmail":null,"isVisible":true,"approved":true,"numComments":5,"reviewed":true,"createdByUsername":"anonymous_user","pathToPreview":"","mediaType":"EXTERNALMEDIA","commentId":"1213386","subject":"","averageRating":0,"body":"The US is becoming more like Cuba every day thanks to Obamarx and his Communist followers."},{"anonName":null,"pathToMedia":"434889_69466567","adminTags":null,"views":1339,"createdBy":14123243,"createdByPathToPhoto":"116995/icons/defaultMember_116995_portrait.jpg","assocMediaId":null,"mediaName":"Cuban Blogger Yoani S�nchez Seized, Punched, Released","parentThreadId":null,"mediaId":2674497,"tags":null,"anonSiteUrl":null,"assocMediaType":null,"createdAt":"9 Nov 2009 16:15:12 GMT","anonEmail":null,"isVisible":true,"approved":true,"numComments":5,"reviewed":true,"createdByUsername":"fb_1054011813","pathToPreview":"","mediaType":"EXTERNALMEDIA","commentId":"1213841","subject":"","averageRating":0,"body":"Ah..that good old fashioned socialist state openness. Coming to a United States of America near you."}],"error":"","totPages":5}