Beyonce, Jay-Z Cuba trip questioned

WASHINGTON: Two US Republican lawmakers want to know if popular American pop star Beyonce and her husband, rap singer Jay-Z, had the US government’s permission to travel to Cuba despite an economic embargo.
Representatives Ileana Ros-Lehtinen and Mario Diaz-Balart of Florida on Friday sent a letter to Adam Szubin, director of the Office of Foreign Assets Control at the US Treasury Department, requesting information on the type of license Beyonce and Jay-Z received before traveling to Cuba. “As you know, US law expressly prohibits the licensing of financial transactions for ‘tourist activities’ in Cuba,” the pair wrote.
The lawmakers went on to say that these restrictions were in place because the Cuban government was listed by the US State Department as one of four state sponsors of terrorism and has “one of the world’s most egregious” human rights records.
“Cuba’s tourism industry is wholly state-controlled; therefore, US dollars spent on Cuban tourism directly fund the machinery of oppression that brutally represses the Cuban people,” Ros-Lehtinen and Diaz-Balart wrote.
Beyonce and Jay-Z created a stir Thursday as they toured the streets of Old Havana, with hundreds of Cubans turning out to catch a glimpse of the US pop power couple.
Celebrating their fifth wedding anniversary, they visited historical landmarks in the heart of Old Havana, which is a UNESCO World Heritage site. They snapped pictures and spoke with local residents.
Beyonce — who sang the US national anthem at President Barack Obama’s inauguration in January and performed in the Super Bowl half-time show in February — was wearing a short mustard yellow dress with black and white accents. Criminal penalties for violating the regulations could result in up to 10 years in prison and $250,000 in individual fines.
Beyonce and Jay-Z were not the only US celebrities to visit Cuba in recent years — actors Sean Penn and Bill Murray did so in 2009.