Yoani Sanchez, 34, Cuban blogger and winner of several international awards, confirmed that today, “was detained for twenty minutes and mistreated by the police on his way to a demonstration in favor of nonviolence.”
The blogger told the media that “I was walking down a street in Havana with other bloggers, when we were intercepted by agents of state security who asked us to accompany them, to which I refused and demanded to be shown warrants.”
Bloggers, resisted and police forces put them in two vehicles, where they suffered both physical and verbal abuse, after about 20 minutes they were abandoned in the city.
Sanchez said “I was kidnapped Sicilian style”
And that “The police procedure was similar to that often applied to political dissidents, as the Cuban Commission for Human Rights and National Reconciliation (CCDHRN, not recognized by the government) called low-intensity repression.
Yoani Sanchez was awarded for his blog “desdecuba.com / Generation Y”, with Spanish digital journalism prize Ortega y Gaset and American Maria Moors Cabot award, and so far he could not receive either because Cuban authorities prevented him from leaving the country.
