No "white card" for Yoani (UPDATED)

Underlying a lot of the reporting about Cuban blogger Yoani Sánchez are questions and speculations about what the Castro dictatorship really thinks about her work.

How does she do it?

And how does she get away with it?

After all, she is able to pull off what would otherwise seem impossible in a totalitarian society: The publication for all the world to read of incisive descriptions and commentaries of life in that society, words that that tyranny would probably prefer best be left unsaid and unwritten.

If she had not receive so much publicity from the international press — TIME magazine recently named her one of the world's most influential people — wouldn't the dictatorship long ago move to silence her?

The dictatorship has all but settled any doubts about what it thinks about Sánchez by so far denying her permission to travel to Spain to accept on Wednesday a prestigious journalism prize she was recently awarded, according to the Spanish newspaper El Pais.

Sanchez told the newspaper she is "pessimistic" the government will issue her the required "white card" allowing her to travel. She said the obstacles she has encountered reveal more about Cuba today than anything she has written on her blog.

Sanchez added that she thinks hers is the "perfect test" to determine whether recent changes announced by Raúl Castro are real or just words.

Sanchez, 32, last month was named the winner of the Ortega y Gasset Prize for the category of digital journalism.

Perhaps the best of the many profiles written about Sanchez was a short essay in TIME written by Cuban American author Oscar Hijuelos:

Lord knows, but had the resourceful and courageous Yoani Sánchez, 32, come of age before the Internet, it's most likely that we would have never heard of her. Nor would we have had the opportunity to read her charming but pugnacious slice-of-life portraits of Cuba, which she has been sending out through cyberspace since April 2007 as the Generación Y blogger (desdecuba.com/generaciony).

Trained as a philologist in Havana but denied a career in academia — her dissertation, entitled Dictatorships in Latin American Literature, was perceived as a veiled criticism of the Castro regime — Sánchez has made a living working in Havana's tourist industry.

More important, under the nose of a regime that has never tolerated dissent, Sánchez has practiced what paper-bound journalists in her country cannot: freedom of speech. The pieces she has been clandestinely sending out from Internet cafés — while posing as a tourist—are often funny, elegantly written and poignant. Her subjects have included the shortage of lemons, the turgid proceedings of the Cuban parliament and the slowness of meaningful reforms by Raúl Castro.

These have earned her international acclaim. With a feisty dedication to the truth, Yoani Sánchez's activities bode well for the future of her country.

Others on the list include Oprah Winfrey, the Dalai Lama and the three U.S. presidential candidates.

Sánchez took it all in stride, writing on her blog in a post entitled, "What am I doing there?":

"Along with 99 famous people, TIME magazine has put me on its list of influential people for 2008. I, who have never climbed on the stage ... and who my own neighbors who don't know if 'Yoani' is written with an 'h' in the middle or a 's' at the end. I am more surprised to be listed under the heading of 'Heroes and Pioneers,' but I would prefer the category of citizen.

"Of the countless ways to reach that famous list, I believe I have traveled by foot the most unusual way. It is not underpinned by economic power, charisma before cameras, political control or religious ancestry. I simply dedicated myself to telling my reality. ... I have come to believe that the voice of an individual can push the walls and oppose the fading myths. Now I have just enough vanity to imagine that the others (on TIME's list) are asking, 'Who is this unknown Cuban blogger who is with us?'"

She is unknown no longer.

Just ask the dictatorship blocking her from receiving any greater acclaim.

UPDATED, 10:25 p.m. EDT

It looks like Sánchez won't be getting her white card.

"It's another way to remind us that we are like little children who need to get our parents' permission to leave the house," she told AFP.

This is not a surprise. Recall that the government similiarly denied permisson for the Damas De Blanco to travel to Europe a few years ago to accept the European Union's top human rights prize.