Didn’t take long for a story like this to surface, did it? Passport applications are being accepted in the Castro Kingdom, but passports are being denied.
The only good news here is that AP is actually carrying this story. Let’s see if they keep track of the tens of thousands of others who will find themselves in the same pathetic situation.
And let’s keep in mind that the application fee for a passport in Cuba — which adds up to about three months of a yearly salary — is most probably non-refundable, even in the case of an instantaneous denial such as this one.
As Elmore James would say — or sing– Shake Your Money Maker, Prince Raul!
Cuban Dissident Denied a Passport
HAVANA (AP) — A Cuban dissident who was locked up for years in connection with his political activities said Wednesday he has been denied a passport that would have let him go overseas under recently enacted travel reform.
Angel Moya, one of 75 anti-government activists imprisoned in a 2003 crackdown on dissent and later released, said he went to file paperwork and the $50 application fee to request a passport, but a clerk turned him down.
“She told me, after consulting a database, that I was restricted and it couldn’t be processed for reasons of public interest,” Moya told The Associated Press.
The denial suggests that Cuba intends to exercise a legal clause by which it retains the right to restrict some citizens’ right to travel, and casts an element of doubt over the Jan. 14 measure that eliminated the loathed exit visa required of all Cubans seeking to go abroad.