Luis Manuel Otero Alcantara.Image: keystone
July 19, 2026, 4:17 amJuly 19, 2026, 4:17 am
The Cuban government critic and artist Luis Manuel Otero Alcántara left Cuba and arrived in the USA after five years in prison. “Today Luis wants to live again, resume his projects and regain the time that was taken from him,” it said on his Facebook page. Accordingly, he wants to continue to work for a free Cuba.
The 38-year-old is one of the leaders of the opposition San Isidro Movement for Freedom of Expression and Art and is considered one of Cuba’s best-known government critics. He was sentenced to five years in prison after the nationwide protests in July 2021. After serving his full sentence, Otero Alcántara was supposed to be released last week. However, his whereabouts were unknown until the end.
According to information from those close to him, Otero Alcántara was released, but was only allowed to leave Cuba permanently for exile. A humanitarian admission program had previously been applied for in the USA.
Jubilant reception at the airport
Videos on social media showed Otero Alcántara being welcomed by a cheering crowd at Miami airport. Supporters placed a Cuban flag around him with the inscription “Patria y Vida” (“Fatherland and Life”) – the title of a Latin Grammy-winning song that is considered a symbol of the Cuban protest movement.
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio welcomed the artist’s arrival in the United States. Otero Alcántara’s only “crime” was “refusing to remain silent and using his art to demand the basic freedoms that have been denied to Cubans for almost seven decades,” Rubio explained. At the same time, he called for the release of, according to US information, more than 700 political prisoners in Cuba. Just last week, the human rights organization Prisoners Defenders spoke of more than 1,300 political prisoners on the Caribbean island.
Protests have largely been absent since 2021
The mass protests on July 11, 2021 were the largest in Cuba since the 1959 revolution under Fidel Castro. Since the wave of arrests, there have been no comparable nationwide demonstrations, but recently there have been smaller protests against the ongoing power outages. Many activists and government critics are now in prison or living in exile. (sda/dpa)