Luis Manuel Otero Alcántara remains in an unknown location after being removed from prison two days before completing his five-year sentence on July 9, 2026.
The relevant judicial authorities now have a legal deadline of 72 hours to issue a response, Cubalex says.
By EFE (14ymedio)
HAVANA TIMES – The legal aid organization Cubalex announced that it has formally filed a habeas corpus petition in Havana on behalf of artist and political prisoner Luis Manuel Otero Alcantara, who remains in an unknown location after being removed from prison two days before completing his five-year sentence on July 9.
“The relevant judicial authorities now have a legal deadline of 72 hours to issue a response,” the organization said on social media. Cubalex had reported the previous day that it had been unable to file the petition “because the Havana Provincial People’s Court, the competent body to hear the request, as well as the Supreme People’s Court, remained closed on Monday despite it being a working day.”
Cubalex explained that “this legal action is being taken in a critical context of lack of legal protection,” noting that “on July 9, the five-year sentence the artist had been serving at Guanajay Prison since 2021 officially expired.”
The organization also denounced that “despite this, on July 7 he was taken out of prison by military forces and State Security agents to an unknown location, and since then there has been no official information regarding his whereabouts.”
“Cubalex demands that due process and the physical integrity of Luis Manuel Otero Alcantara be respected,” the organization said.
The first contact with Otero Alcántara after it became known that he had been removed from Guanajay Prison was reported on July 9 by curator Anamely Ramos. She wrote on social media that the artist was “doing well” after speaking with her “from a Cuban State Security mobile phone.” He did not know where he was being held.
Ramos said in her post that State Security agents “wanted to know how the requested humanitarian parole process was progressing” so that Otero Alcántara could travel to the United States. She added that “Luis Manuel’s humanitarian parole remains under review.”
Regarding this, the NGO Human Rights Watch (HRW) criticized what it described last week as “a release conditioned on exile.”
Luis Manuel Otero Alcantara, 38, who has been recognized by Amnesty International as a prisoner of conscience, was imprisoned for five years at Guanajay Prison, from where he repeatedly denounced multiple abuses.
The leader of the San Isidro Movement was arrested on July 11, 2021, when he attempted to join the massive anti-government protests that day, the largest demonstrations seen in Cuba in decades.
Since last week, Amnesty International has been calling for the artist’s “immediate and unconditional release.”
Published in Spanish by 14ymedio and translated and posted in English by Havana Times.
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