Havana, Cuba, Dec 6, 2007 / 09:52 am
Plainclothes police burst into a Catholic church in eastern Cuba, beating and using pepper spray on a group of dissidents gathered there, Reuters reports.
The incident took place Tuesday in Santiago, Cuba’s second-largest city, at the parish of Santa Teresita.
Police arrested five people who were among a group of two dozen opponents of Cuba’s Communist government. The protestors had marched through the streets of Santiago decrying the detention of a fellow dissident. Dressed in black, they had arrived at the church to attend Mass.
The police kicked their way in as the parish priest Father Jose Conrado Rodriguez was dressing for evening Mass.