García, better known as ''Antúnez,'' thinks it's 15, which would be an arrest a month.

The last detention came over the Fourth of July weekend, when about 200 other anti-government activists also were picked up on highways and at homes, hotels, airports, bus and train stations around the island and prevented from attending a U.S. Independence Day celebration in Havana.

They were held for a few hours or a few days and sent home in what critics say was the latest and most massive illustration of a nationwide operation to crack down on opponents.

''Raúl Castro's strategy is to create a mirage of change for the international community to mask the fact that acts of repression are increasing,'' Antúnez said in a telephone interview from Placetas, Villa Clara, in central Cuba. 'They arrest you and let you go tomorrow to hide the sense that there is a wave of repression. I'd call it a `wave lite.' It's different, and we don't know what lengths it will reach.

``It's an extremely critical situation.''

Raúl Castro, who formally took over the presidency in February, has been hailed internationally for taking initial steps at reform in the months he's been in power. But activists argue that just as he allowed cellphones and computers for the first time, Castro launched a harassment campaign against members of the opposition through frequent detentions. The crusade appears designed to keep the overall number of political prisoners steady while sending a strong message that Castro has a firm grip on dissent.

HOUSE ARREST

Democracy activists in Cuba say the campaign is akin to the 2003 wave of arrests that landed 75 dissidents in prison for as long as 28 years. In a report made public Thursday, the Cuban Council of Human Rights Monitors documented more than 700 short-term detentions so far this year. The group counted at least 44 people put under house arrest between July 2 and 6, and dozens more deported from Havana or prevented from leaving outer provinces.

The increase in detentions came in late June, immediately after the European Union lifted sanctions it had against Cuba since the 2003 arrests.

Dissidents said the level of strong-arm tactics appears to vary from province to province, with Villa Clara protesters suffering the most.

''It hurt them to see how many people were willing to take risks to go to that event,'' said María Antonia Hidalgo, of Holguín in eastern Cuba, who was stopped from attending a July 4 party at the Havana residence of U.S. Interests Section chief Michael Parmly. ``They are afraid to see the truth before their eyes.''

Saying the driver had been in an accident and they needed witnesses, police stopped Hidalgo in a taxi on the way to the Holguín airport. At the airport, authorities questioned her infant daughter's identity papers and did not let them board the flight to Havana. The next day she tried to go by rail but was taken off the train, so she attempted the bus instead.

Police made Hidalgo get off the empty bus because all the tickets ''had been sold,'' she said. Hidalgo never made it to Havana.

In an extraordinary demonstration of its state security apparatus, Cuban agents stopped people nationwide.

Among the nearly 200 detentions: René Gómez Manzano was arrested at Hotel Inglaterra in Havana; Yoel Espinosa at a bus station in Santa Clara; Lourdes Esquibel off the street in Miramar, and Amado Ruiz Moreno at a train station in Placetas.

'Raúl Castro wants to let people know: `We knew you were mobilizing and stopped you at every point in the country,' '' said Cuban American National Foundation spokeswoman Sandy Acosta Cox. 'They established: `We are watching you. We haven't fallen asleep at the wheel.' ''

In Miami, another human rights group -- the Foundation for Human Rights in Cuba -- released a separate 50-page report Thursday detailing the recent wave of temporary detentions of anti-government dissidents. The agency is the human rights arm of the Cuban American National Foundation.

Omar López Montenegro, the human rights foundation's executive director, told a news conference that the brief arrests appear to be part of a new Cuban government tactic aimed at intimidating an increasingly active dissident movement.

''The regime at this moment is trying to scare, to create a mental state within the opposition that something is coming,'' López Montenegro said, ``though that something has not materialized itself.''

Cuban exile organization Democratic Directorate said Castro's new strategy makes it tougher to rally international support for jailed dissidents.

''If someone gets arrested, we do telephone campaigns, calling leaders, calling the prison, getting the international community involved,'' said executive director Marcibel Loo. ``It's harder to get people mobilized if they are released in one day. Maybe it was one day, but it may be a day after they were beaten, and their families were harassed.''

López Montenegro said more arrests reflects increased opposition activity.

''We have noticed that the opposition is much more active, more defiant and, very important, with more vision and strategy,'' said López Montenegro. ``This is hopeful because in the end, the regime is not going to stop repression. That's its nature.''

As an example of intensified opposition activity, López Montenegro cited last month's restaurant protests by eight members of the dissident Federation of Latin American Rural Women. They were briefly arrested when they tried to pay for meals with regular Cuban pesos. The restaurant where the protest occurred accepted payment only in convertible pesos, a parallel currency tied to foreign money such as dollars or euros.

López Montenegro said dissidents have become more active and creative in their protests, because they are better connected to the outside world through cellphones and computers and have learned tactics from anti-government movements in Poland, Serbia and Ukraine.

For example, there are videos of Antúnez on YouTube, where he criticizes things like substandard housing.

Antúnez served 17 years in prison for denouncing the government publicly and for escaping from prison to attend his mother's funeral. He resumed his protests right after his April 2007 release.

`FAITHFUL DISCIPLE'

Antuñez says Raúl Castro's dissident strategy is as harmful as his brother's.

''I don't think this repression is new; Raúl Castro was in his brother's shadow for 50 years,'' Antúnez said. ``He's a participant in all his crimes. He's been a faithful disciple.''

Raúl Castro officially took office Feb. 24 after serving 47 years as his brother's right-hand man.

''They are trying to create a climate of terror so that people do not attend opposition events,'' said Juan Carlos Gonzalez Leiva, who heads the Human Rights Council of Human Rights Monitors. ``They don't even have to be violent. It's a subtle and intelligent way to repress.''

Miami Herald staff writer Alfonso Chardy contributed to this report.