Sanchez receives a paper flower from a street performer during a tour in Rio de Janeiro yesterday.
By MCT Information Services/Miami
Dissident Cuban blogger Yoani Sanchez, who is on a world tour after 10 years of being barred from leaving her homeland, plans to visit Miami on April 1 and speak at the iconic Freedom Tower.
“It is such an honour to not only have Yoani speak at what we affectionately call Democracy’s College, but also at the Freedom Tower. I can think of no better venue for this historic conversation in Miami,” said Dr Eduardo J Padron, president of Miami Dade College.
The Freedom Tower, which is located on the Miami Dade College campus, was the old headquarters of The Miami News but went on to a second life as a centre for processing and offering services to Cuban refugees who fled the Castro regime in the 1960s.
The federal government sold the Mediterranean Revival style building in the 1970s and after changing hands a few times, it was donated to Miami Dade College.
Sanchez will take part in what is billed as a special conversation with community leaders and students. The conversation will be live-streamed from the tower.
The Cuban blogger, who began an international tour this week that will stretch to nearly three months, will receive the Miami Dade College Presidential Medal for championing human rights.
Past honourees have included president Bill Clinton; Lech Walesa, former Polish president and leader of the Solidarity Movement, and Mikhail Gorbachev, who brought economic and political change to the Soviet Union.
“I think it’s wonderful that she’s coming,” said Andy Gomez, a senior fellow at the University of Miami’s Institute for Cuban and Cuban-American Studies.
“It will give her the opportunity to see how embracing the Cuban-American people are to Cubans on the island and how much we care about them. I hope she will go back and tell this to the Cuban people.”
More importantly, he said, it will give people here and at the other venues Sanchez plans to visit the ability to see Cuba from the point of view of a journalist, “a simple blogger” and help them understand the hardships of daily life in Cuba.
“We need to listen to their voices; a lot of times the voices on the island are different but they are so important in building bridges between here and there,” Gomez said.
But he added, “I think too much pressure is being put on the shoulders of Yoani. She’s not a politician; she’s not an academic; she’s not a public figure by design and people abroad have made her into a public figure.
“She’s one of the many - many dissidents on the island. I hope she doesn’t burn out,” said Gomez.
During her first stop in Brazil this week, Sanchez, 37, proved resilient in the face of pro-Cuba hecklers who disrupted the screening of a film about press freedom in which she appears. On her arrival in the Brazilian state of Bahia, protesters also threw fake dollar bills at her and accused her of being financed by the CIA.
Her critical blog posts, tweets and columns are followed by people around the world, although because Internet access is so limited in Cuba, she is not well-known on the island.
Through the years, Sanchez has had to turn down many invitations to visit abroad because the Cuban government wouldn’t give her an exit visa.
But under a travel and migration reform last month, Cubans are no longer required to obtain the so-called “tarjeta blanca” to leave the island. And they are allowed to stay outside the country for extended periods without losing their Cuban citizenship rights.
Sanchez requested her passport soon after the reform went into effect and began planning an itinerary that includes several stops in the US, an appearance at an Inter American Press Association meeting in Mexico, and visits to a number of European nations.
Sanchez, who also plans to visit her sister while in south Florida, appeared at the 2011 Miami Book Fair International _ but via a phone call and a pre-recorded video message. Earlier this month she participated in the live programme “Avanza Cuba” _ a collaboration of Miami Dade College and TV Marti, via phone.
