Cuba does not protect the right to free speech. The country is also known for its substandard internet access. But Yoani Sánchez, the award-winning human rights blogger best known for her blog Generation Y (Generación Y) , has started 14 and-a-half (14ymedio), Cuba’s first independent newspaper in fifty years. Sanchez started blogging under an alias using hotel computers meant for tourists. Today, her blog posts and tweets routinely go viral. We spoke with Sanchez when she was in Chicago to speak before the Chicago Council on Global Affairs, who honored her as their Hart Fellow for 2014. (photo: In this April 1, 2013 file photo, Cuba’s best-known blogger Yoani Sanchez speaks at the Freedom Tower of Miami Dade College, in Miami, Florida. (AP Photo/Lynne Sladky, File))