Cuba: Yoani Sánchez Arrested During Reporting Trip

Oct. 5, 2012— -- UPDATE: After 30 hours in custody, Yoani Sánchez tweeted late Friday evening that she had been released. She added details in Spanish about how she felt: "During detention, I refused to eat or drink any liquid. 1st glass of water that I drank when I got home like fire in my esophagus."

Cuban dissident blogger Yoani Sánchez was arrested Thursday by officials in the city of Bayamo, according to AFP news agency.

News of Sánchez's detention first emerged late Thursday through Yohandri, a blogger who is sympathetic to the Cuban government and claimed that Sanchez had gone to Bayamo -- located 450 miles from Havana -- to "disrupt" a trial against a Spanish citizen.

Yohandri added that Sánchez's husband, dissident blogger Reinaldo Escobar, was also arrested by local officials in Bayamo. The Cuban government has not disclosed the charges on which it arrested the couple.

The New York based Committee to Protect Journalists confirmed the arrests in a statement published Friday, condemning the Cuban government from clamping down on independent journalists on the island.

"The detained bloggers were reportedly en route to cover a trial," the CPJ statement reads. "But the official reason for their arrest was not immediately known."

Spanish citizen Miguel Angel Carromero stands on trial in Bayamo for an accident that caused the death of well-known Cuban political dissident Oswaldo Paya.

According to the Cuban government, Carromero was driving a car that veered of a road in Cuba's Granma province in July and crashed into a tree, instantly killing Paya who was riding in the back seat.

But Sánchez has been skeptical of this version of Paya's death. Some of Paya's family members have suggested that people who wanted to hurt Paya forced the dissident's car off the road.