Cuban blogger beaten

Secret police agents have abducted and beaten award-winning blogger Yoani Sanchez, whose online reports chronicle the dark side of everyday life in communist Cuba.

Three agents in street clothes snatched Sanchez and her friend Orlando Luis Pardo off the street in the Havana district of Vedado as they headed out to an anti-violence march.

"They beat me and then they shoved me into a car head-first," Sanchez, who writes the blog Generation Y, said.

Sanchez said she was not seriously injured and was released half an hour after the arrest.