Cuban police have again detained one of the island's most daring dissidents, a 38-year-old who has staged several headline-grabbing protests against President Fidel Castro's government.

Oscar Elias Biscet, a physician, was detained along with four other dissidents Saturday in the town of Pedro Betancourt, some 75 miles east of Havana, said Biscet's wife, Elsa Morejon.

The four others were freed Sunday and Monday, but her husband was apparently transferred to a jail in Havana, Morejon told The Herald in a telephone interview.

One of the dissidents arrested with Biscet, journalist Angel Polanco, reportedly claimed that he saw one policeman punch Biscet and another burn his arm with a cigarette.

Biscet has been detained by Cuban State Security police about 20 times in recent years, after he founded the Lawton Foundation for Human Rights and launched a series of unusually well-publicized protests.

He recently led a small group of dissidents on a 40-day fast -- one day for each year of Castro's rule -- to demand the release of all political prisoners. That protest was covered almost weekly by foreign journalists in Havana.

Biscet organized the only scheduled street demonstrations against Castro known to have taken place in Havana -- a December ceremony marking the 50th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and a Feb. 22 gathering to protest abortion and the death penalty.

The Lawton Foundation last week even awarded ``honorary membership to Diego Tintorero, the Miami exile who ran onto the field during Cuban baseball games with the Baltimore Orioles and at the Pan American games in Canada.

Veterans of Cuba's human rights movement say Biscet is unusual because he's black -- most Cuban dissidents are white -- and uses aggressive tactics without precedent in the fight against the Castro government.

``He is young and he has not yet spent any long terms in prison, said one activist who has served several prison terms. ``He has no fear and believes his work will achieve something.