The human rights organisation, Reporters Without Frontiers , says Cuban police detained another three independent local journalists and two photographers this week.

In a statement issued in Paris, the organisation said one journalist, Nancy Sotolongo, and the two photographers, Santiago Martinez Trujillo and Angel Pablo Polanco, were arrested on Monday as they prepared to cover a human rights demonstration.

It also said the director of the Cuban Union of Independent Journalists and Writers , Maria de los Angeles Gonzalez, was detained on Tuesday after police searched her home; and another journalist, Pedro Arguelles Moran, was arrested on Wednesday.

Reporters Without Frontiers said it was also concerned about the health of the journalist Jesus Diaz Hernandez who went on hunger strike after reportedly being sentenced to four years in prison last week on charges of posing a social threat.