Castros afraid of the truth

Miami Herald: “Paz y amor.” Peace and love. That was the message that 200 young people chanted in Havana while holding placards calling for “no more violence” as passing cars honked their horns.

Not among them: Cuban blogger Yoani Sanchez, who was on her way to the Friday demonstration when she and another blogger, Orlando Luis Pardo, were hauled into a car by three men, likely state security agents. The pair was dragged into the car, beaten black and blue in the head and chest before being dumped miles away from the demonstration as if they were trash. (You can watch a short video of the protest at http://desdecuba.com/generationy/)

‘Blame the victim’

In a Sunday blog post, Ms. Sanchez, who is walking with a crutch because of back pain post beating, summed up the “blame the victim” attitude that permeates after 50 years of dictatorship: “The dozens of eyes that watched as Orlando and I were forced into a car with blows would prefer not to testify, and so they put themselves on the side of the criminal.”

With 1 million hits a month worldwide, Ms. Sanchez’s “just the facts, ma’am” approach to exposing Cuba’s reality on her Generation Y blog surely has the communist regime’s attention. She has won prestigious journalism awards for her blog. Her heroic work is known internationally, yet few Cubans know about the growing blogger movement on their island because the government does not allow access to the Internet.

At 32, Ms. Sanchez is among a new generation of truth tellers, born into a revolution that has quashed every basic human right even as the Orwellian Human Rights Council of the United Nations ignores Fidel and Raul Castro’s abuses of power.

What do the Castro brothers have to fear from a rail-thin young mother who writes about her life there and has become a voice for those living in fear?

The truth.