(CNN) - A Cuban dissident who testified before Congress via video link from Havana last week was detained and beaten two days later, his wife said.

Reached by phone in Cuba, Yris Tamara Pérez Aguilera said her husband was beaten in his cell and rendered unconscious by pepper spray.

In spite of being warned of the risk of reprisals, Jorge Luis García Pérez, known as Antúnez, testified last Thursday, describing repressive conditions for dissidents in Cuba. "We suffer beatings," he told the senators, "torture, and all kinds of violations of our human rights." In one activist's case, he asserted, "the political police threatened to sexually abuse and rape her 6-year-old daughter." He pleaded for support for what he called "the resistance forces," as they engage in "a head-on battle with the state."
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