Sawt Falasteen - Cuban dissident artist Otero Alcantara lands in US exile

Otero Alcantara, designated a prisoner of conscience by Amnesty International, was sentenced to five years in prison in 2022 for insulting national symbols, contempt and disturbing the public order.

He landed in Miami, the capital of the Cuban diaspora, after a short flight from Havana, according to a video of Otero Alcantara at the airport that was shared with AFP by his friend, activist Anamely Ramos.

Otero Alcantara, a self-taught performance artist, sculptor and painter, rose to prominence in 2020 as leader of the San Isidro protest movement of artists and intellectuals.

He was detained in July 2021 while leaving his home in Havana to join unprecedented mass protests.

"After five years of unjust imprisonment, Cuban artist Luis Manuel Otero Alcantara has finally been freed," read a post on his Facebook account managed by his friends.

It added that he had obtained a visa to enter the US and that he intends to perform in Miami later in the day.

Washington hailed Otero Alcantara's arrival in the US and said Havana harassed and imprisoned him "for daring to imagine a free Cuba."

Calling the artist's protest movement "a beacon of hope," US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said in a statement that "Otero Alcantara's only 'crime' was refusing to stay silent and using his art to demand the basic freedoms everyday Cubans have been denied for almost seven decades."

Rubio also called for Cuba to release the more than 700 political prisoners "unjustly detained" and held by Havana.

"The international community must stop turning a blind eye to the human rights abuses of the Cuban regime and join us in demanding an end to their repression," he said.

- 'Live again' -

Otero Alcantara is one of the most prominent figures in Cuba's new dissident movement. He was awarded the Norwegian Rafto Prize for Human Rights in 2024 "for his fearless opposition to authoritarianism through art."

The Facebook posts say he was held in Cuba in a maximum security prison, and that a condition of his release was that he never return to the country, which has accused him of acting on behalf of Washington to destabilize the communist-run island.

On July 7, he was transferred from a prison to a state security force facility, two days before completing his term.

Cuban authorities did not provide any information about his whereabouts after that.

The release comes at a time of high tensions between Havana and Washington.

In early July, during a UN General Assembly debate on US sanctions against Cuba, US Ambassador Mike Waltz held up a portrait of Otero Alcantara to denounce the island's lack of freedom of expression.

The dissident's departure to Miami also confirms the Cuban government's strategy of silencing its most critical voices through exile.

According to a tally of human rights organizations, between 700 and 1,000 political prisoners remain behind bars in Cuba.

His friends say Otero Alcantara is embracing his newfound freedom.

"Today, Luis wants to live again, resume his projects, and reclaim the time that was stolen from him," reads one of the Facebook posts.

"He also wants to continue envisioning and working toward freedom for Cuba," it said.

"Left behind are hundreds of political prisoners and an entire people enduring perhaps the worst moment in their history. He has not forgotten this."

P.AbuBaker--SF-PST