Global Voices Online

The detention, beating and subsequent release of bloggers Yoaní Sánchez, Claudia Cadelo and Orlando Luis Pardo by Cuban state security on November 6, is receiving widespread coverage in both the mainstream media and the blogosphere and twittersphere. Yoaní has written (es) about the incident on Generación Y, her blog, and English-language blogs like Babalú Blog, Repeating Islands and Uncommon Sense are following the story. An audio interview (es) with Sánchez about the incident has been posted to YouTube.

On the evening of November 6, Babalú blog linked to a post by Penultimos Dias (es) reporting that a number of prominent Cuban bloggers, including Yoaní Sánchez and Global Voices contributor Claudia Cadelo, were detained by state security forces. An update from Penultimos Días reported that Sanchez and Orlando Luis Pardo were “verbally abused and severely beaten”.

Russia Blog reports on the arrest of the alleged killers of lawyer Stanislav Markelov and journalist Anastasiya Baburova.

Nash Holos writes about Yury Luhovy's new documentary on the Ukrainian famine of 1932-33.

Late one night, a Cuban taxi driver stops for Yoani Sanchez because of the colour of her skin, but when he learns that she's a blogger, his unease reveals another kind of prejudice: “His spectrum of classification stigmatizes not only some shades of color, but also certain leanings of opinion…that also lead, on this Island, to displays of segregation and rejection.”

As six Cuban homosexuals are reportedly arrested, Uncommon Sense says: “their real ‘crime' — like that committed by all Cubans, gay or straight, labeled as ‘pre-criminal social dangers' — is that with their lifestyle, [they] have chosen to not conform with the ‘revolutionary ideal.'”

Thai Prison Life chronicles the life of prisoners inside the prisons of Thailand.

Indi.ca wonders about the authenticity of a news report that a netizen named Gayan Rajapakse was arrested in Sri Lanka for ‘web comments’.

“We seem determined to deny our history, rather than learn from it. Why else would we, who have been so wounded by the whip, venerate it?” B.C. Pires puts in his two cents' worth on the recent flogging of schoolchildren in Barbados.