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Saturday, November 07, 2009

Blogger says Cuban agents beat her

November 7, 2009 10:14 a.m. EST



Havana resident Yoani Sanchez's blog, "Generation Y," draws about 1 million hits a month.






Havana, Cuba (CNN) -- A Cuban woman known for writing critical blogs about life in the communist nation said she was briefly detained by government agents Friday in the capital.

Yoani Sanchez said agents pulled her hair and beat her when she refused to get into their car, according to Roots of Hope, a nonprofit that works with Cuban youth. She said she was on her way to an anti-violence march when she was detained.

Sanchez gained international attention for her blog "Generation Y," which gets about 1 million hits a month.

Read Yoani Sanchez's blog

Before agents released Sanchez, they warned her that her writings had gone too far, the nonprofit said. Freedom of speech is limited in the island nation, where media are controlled by the government.

There was no immediate comment from the Cuban government on Sanchez's claims, which CNN could not independently verify.

Earlier this year, the blogger was named one of the world's 100 most influential people by Time magazine. The government barred her from traveling to New York in October to receive a journalism award. .


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