Blogger contest reflects 'vibrant' blogosphere in Cuba

Cuban bloggers sent Twitter messages to announce the winners of their first-ever contest -- two milestones in a country where a report Thursday said a ``vibrant'' blogosphere is emerging despite ``vast legal and technical obstacles.''

``We're pretty happy to have achieved all this,'' said a clearly ecstatic Reynaldo Escobar, a blogger and contest judge. ``None of this, none of it, has ever been done in Cuba.''

Both the tweets and contest prizes were landmarks for Cuban bloggers, described in a report by the U.S.-based Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) as ``mainly young adults . . . [who] have opened a new space for free expression in Cuba, while offering a fresh glimmer of hope for the rebirth of independent ideas in Cuba's closed system.''

The Cuban Communist Party controls all but a tiny minority of the island's mass media, and the Communications Ministry has the legal power to block access to Internet sites ``with content that is contrary to social interests, ethics and good customs; as well as . . . applications that affect the integrity and security of the state.''

Nevertheless, the CPJ reported, ``a vibrant, independent blogging culture is emerging in Cuba, of all places,'' noting it counted at least 25 independent journalistic and regularly maintained blogs, 75 others based on more personal interests and nearly 200 produced by government journalists.

The report, issued Thursday, notes that most independent blogs are not aligned with the political opposition. Instead, they explore issues not addressed by the official media, such as food shortages, problems in housing and the health and education systems and the lack of Internet access.

Yoani Sánchez, one of the first and best known Cuban bloggers, said that's true, up to a point. ``In the real Cuba, where everything is political, there are very few possibilities for living in a bubble separated from that reality,'' she said in a telephone interview with El Nuevo Herald.

The CPJ report added that while Cuba does not have a ``sophisticated system for Web censorship such as that used by China,'' it is ``one of the few countries in the Americas with explicit censorship rules intended . . . `to defend the country's interests and security.' ''

The high cost of surfing the Web -- $6 per hour in a country where salaries average $17 per month -- limits access. And computer science students are reportedly deployed as ``cyber police'' to monitor the content of independent blogs, the report added.

Bloggers sidestep the restrictions, however, by writing their posts at home on personal computers, copying them to flash drives or CDs and taking them to Internet centers in cafes, hotels or foreign embassies to e-mail them to friends abroad, according to the report. All the independent blogs are based in foreign servers.

Although few Cubans can afford to spend the time online reading blogs, Sánchez said, bloggers pass their