Havana, Sep 8 (EFE).– About 140 Cuban dissidents were arrested Tuesday as they were going to attend a Mass at the Lady of Caridad del Cobre Church to celebrate the feast day of the island’s patron saint, sources within the dissident movement told EFE.

“Most of the arrests occurred in the early morning hours (on Tuesday) some kilometers from the El Cobre Church, at a spot known as La Tanqueta” in eastern Santiago de Cuba province, said the general coordinator of the Patriotic Union of Cuba, or UNPACU, opposition group, Jose Daniel Ferrer.

In all, some 120 UNPACU members were arrested along with about 20 women affiliated with the Ladies in White dissident movement, according to Ferrer, who said that the Cuban authorities’ motive was to “prevent them from attending the traditional Mass for the feast day of the patron saint of Cuba.”

Ferrer, a former political prisoner with the so-called “Group of 75” opposition figures sentenced to lengthy prison terms during the Black Spring of 2003, said that some of the dissidents were beaten when they were arrested.

He said he had verified that the majority of the activists with his group have already been released by the authorities, although he had not been able to confirm the status of about a dozen. He said that all the Ladies in White who were apprehended have been released.

According to the latest monthly report released by the Cuban Commission for Human Rights and National Reconciliation, last August there were at least 768 temporary political arrests on the communist island, the highest monthly figure so far this year, and 21 cases of physical aggression during those arrests.

The Cuban government, meanwhile, considers dissidents to be “counterrevolutionaries” and “mercenaries.” EFE