Standing with Yoani

I have been blogging here about my big, fat, Cuban family totally at my leisure. I write about the everyday comings and goings in my little corner of the world and all it really costs me is $8.95 a month for TypePad's Pro Plus service.

I have the supreme luxury of writing about anything that excites or amuses me at any given time. And I do.

Today I want to make you aware if you're not already, of a group of dissident bloggers presently under fire for blogging in Cuba.

Unlike me, they write about the everyday indignities of living in castro's gulag. You understand, of course, that in a communist country, dissension is not just discouraged, it is oftentimes attacked.

Yet these brave bloggers persist.

It costs them much to get their information out to the world and yet they continue, fearlessly, to write about the reality of life in Cuba today. The reality that seems to escape the notice of such Hollywood elites as Sean Penn who went to Cuba to meet with the castros a week ago.

Still the dissidents continue to write and get the word out about the repression and the aggression of their slave masters.

There's a particular young blogger, 33 year old Yoani Sanchez who writes the fabulous blog, Generacion Y. Yoani and dissidents like her are absolutely fearless in telling the truth of life in Cuba. She is so masterful that she has been honored multiple times by various countries to receive awards and honors, which she sadly cannot claim. You see the castro goons will not let her leave the country.

Even after writing her insightful posts they cannot be read from inside Cuba, where her blog has been blocked.

Tonight, Yoani Sanchez and a group of dissidents were picked up, harassed, detained and beaten as they prepared to attend, ironically, a demonstration against the use of violence.

They knew and called her by name and forced her into a car where she figured that this was a kidnapping which would end in her execution. Although she and her dissident companions were beaten severely they were subsequently released.

Her safety lies here. On blogs like mine. Anywhere the story of the injustices of the Cuban people can be told to the rest of the world is a safe place. Here you will not be penalized for your opinion.

I welcome Yoani to my big, fat, Cuban family. Here's what happened to her today. She tells the story in Spanish.

Welcome Yoani, my blog casa is your blog casa.

UPDATE 11/7/2009: