Cuba says detained dissident under investigation

HAVANA, Aug 14 (Reuter) - The Cuban Foreign Ministry Thursday confirmed that a dissident journalist, Raul Rivero, had been detained and said he was being investigated.

Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Marianela Ferriol, speaking at a weekly news briefing, mentioned the Rivero case in response to a question. She did not say what he was being investigated for and gave no other details of the case.

Rivero, one of the best known of Cuba's dissident journalists, was detained early Tuesday. Security officials also spent several hours searching his Havana appartment.

Rivero is head of a news agency called Cuba Press, one of a handful of small and illegal news organisations set up by dissident journalists over the last two years that seek to provide an alternative to the state-controlled media in Cuba, a one-party communist state. They publish their work abroad.

Rivero's detention follows that of four leading dissidents in mid-July. The four -- Vladimiro Roca, Martha Beatriz Roque, Felix Bonne and Rene Gomez Manzano -- have not yet been charged but authorities have said they are being investigated on suspicion of ``counter-revolutionary'' activities.

14:39 08-14-97

Distributed By Cubanet