Raymond Collitt & Matthew Bristow – Bloomberg, 01/26/2012
Cuban dissident Yoani Sanchez. Source: LAHT
Brazil issued a tourist visa to a dissident Cuban blogger a few days before President Dilma Rousseff is scheduled to travel to the communist island in a visit being dominated by human rights concerns.
Yoani Sanchez, an outspoken critic of Raul Castro’s government, requested permission to travel to Brazil so she could attend the screening next month of a documentary in which she appears, the foreign ministry said in a statement. The visa was issued by Brazil’s embassy in Havana.
The 36-year-old philologist, who has repeatedly been blocked from leaving Cuba, celebrated the decision. “Now comes the most difficult part: the permission to leave,” she said in a message posted on her Twitter account yesterday.
