State Security had him “missing” for 11 days after leaving prison

Luis Manuel Otero Alcantara after arriving in Miami on July 18, 2026. / 14ymedio

Visual and performance artist Luis Manuel Otero was taken by Cuba’s political police to Jose Marti International Airport in Havana.

By 14ymedio

HAVANA TIMES – Artist and San Isidro Movement leader Luis Manuel Otero Alcantara, whose whereabouts had been unknown while in State Security custody for the past 11 days, arrived in Miami this Saturday, one day after the United States approved a special travel permit (parole) for him. A crowd of friends and supporters awaited him at the airport and welcomed him by singing the Cuban national anthem.

In his first statements to the press, the artist recalled that “right now rapper Maykel Osorbo is in prison” and appealed to the exile community in Miami, Cubans elsewhere, “Donald Trump,” and “everyone who can help us: please, contribute so that Cuba can be free,” concluding: “Every minute of effort is one minute less of dictatorship.”

After learning that the political prisoner had boarded a flight from Havana, those close to the artist recalled on his social media accounts that during his time at the Guanajay maximum-security prison, he “survived in an environment that deprived him of his freedom for political reasons, prevented him from fully developing his work, and separated him from the people he loves.” The regime’s repression did not extinguish Otero’s desire to continue the struggle: “Today he arrives with a profound desire to live again, resume his creative projects, and continue working for Cuba’s freedom.”

They also announced that, upon arriving in Miami, the artist would visit the Shrine of Our Lady of Charity “to leave an offering of thanksgiving.” Otero Alcántara, they explained, “brings with him from Cuba a broken statue of the Virgin. Just as many of us are broken. Just as Cuba is broken. It is a gesture that invites us to gather the fragments, to put back together what has been shattered, and to believe that it is still possible to heal and reclaim a kidnapped country.”

Cuba’s official press was quick to report the artist’s departure and, in an article describing him as “the mercenary Washington has come to collect,” claimed that Otero Alcántara has “a criminal record, not a record as a prisoner of conscience.” It further stated that “he is neither a political opponent nor a human rights defender. He is a common criminal, convicted by Cuban courts after committing offenses defined in our laws: contempt, public disorder, and desecration of national symbols.”

Luis Manuel was taken by the political police to Jose Martíi International Airport in Havana under an escort similar to that provided to opposition figures José Daniel Ferrer and Luis Robles, “the young man with the sign,” both of whom were also released from prison in exchange for accepting exile. In the case of the San Isidro Movement leader, who was arrested on July 11, 2021—before he could take part in the massive demonstrations that day—and sentenced to five years for desecration of national symbols, contempt, and public disorder, his sentence ended on July 9. By then, however, those close to him did not know where he was.

Two days earlier, they reported that the artist had been removed from the maximum-security prison in Guanajay, Artemisa Province, and taken to an unknown location. On July 9 itself, he communicated with his friend Anamely Ramos, an exiled art historian and fellow San Isidro Movement member. According to a post by the activist on social media, Otero called her “from a State Security cell phone, from an unknown number, and the call was on speakerphone.”

When asked how he was doing, the artist replied “fine,” Ramos said, “in that tone we use to indicate that we are as well as can be expected, given the circumstances.” He was unable to answer the second question he was asked: “Where are you?”

The activist explained at the time that the parole application for Alcántara to travel to the United States “was still being processed” and that the artist would remain “in that unknown location until it is resolved.” According to a U.S. official who spoke to 14ymedio on condition of anonymity, by confining Otero Alcántara after he had completed his sentence, the Havana regime intended to “put the ball in Washington’s court and make it appear that the artist remained detained because of delays by the Trump administration.”

His case, along with that of rapper Maykel Castillo Osorbo, became one of the emblematic cases of the repression that followed the July 11 protests.

Castillo, in fact, was transferred to Guanajay prison three days after Otero Alcántara’s release from Kilo 8 prison in Pinar del Río, where he had been serving his nine-year sentence.

Although they were arrested at different times—and neither was detained on April 4, 2021, the date of the events for which the regime accused them; Osorbo was arrested on May 18 of that year—the two Cuban artists share the same prosecution case file, further evidence of the arbitrary nature of Cuba’s revolutionary justice system.

Declared prisoners of conscience by various international organizations, both men have received numerous recognitions during their years in prison for their struggle for human rights in Cuba. The most recent was the 2026 Democracy Award presented by the National Endowment for Democracy (NED) this past June.

Likewise, both have carried out hunger strikes at different times and denounced the prison conditions they endured. Years ago, both expressed their willingness to accept a “prison-for-exile” arrangement, but neither was ever included in the prisoner releases carried out by the Cuban regime through agreements with the Vatican—one in January 2025, days before the end of Joe Biden’s presidency, and another this past March.

First published in Spanish by 14ymedio and translated and posted in English by Havana Times.

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