Cuba
Blogger wins oldest international journalism awardPosted Oct 28 2009
Yoani Sánchez, 34, became the first blogger to win one of the Maria Moors Cabot Prizes given by Columbia University (located in New York City) for outstanding reporting in Latin America and the Caribbean.
The award is the oldest international award in journalism, and it is given to those who further inter-American understanding through reporting and editing.
Sánchez’s blog, Generación Y, speaks critically of the Cuban government’s restrictions on its civilian’s civil liberties. In one of her latest blog posts, Sánchez calls for freedom of opinion, freedom of access to the Internet and freedom to enter and leave Cuba.
Sánchez wrote this post after the Cuban government denied her an exit visa to travel to New York to receive her award. In reaction to her government’s decision, Sánchez posted a video on her blog criticizing the Cuban government. In her video that was played at the award ceremony in New York, she said, “(We) Cubans are like small children. We need the authorization from Dad to leave home.”
According to The New York Times the Castro dictatorship “regards the blog as counter revolutionary.”
Sánchez has also written about her experiences blogging from Cuba in the Summer 2008 issue of Global Journalist.