Cuban authorities have detained dissident Hector Palacios Ruiz for criticizing the governmentís human rights record to foreigners, Amnesty International said.
Palacios, head of the illegal Democratic Solidarity Party and a leader of the Concilio Cubano coalition, was arrested Jan. 9 and taken to the Technical Investigations Department in Havana, the London-based human rights group said.
"He is reportedly being held in a cell with no light or ventilation," it said.
Concilio Cubano is a coalition of human rights and political groups, lawyers, journalists, trade unionists and others set up in October 1995.
It has not been permitted to operate officially and has faced harassment from the government.
No official reason has been given for Palaciosís arrest. But Amnesty quoted unofficial sources as saying he had been charged with "disrespect" for allegedly making statements to correspondents and writing to governments about declarations made by President Fidel Castro at the Ibero-American Summit in Chile last November.