BUENOS AIRES, Argentina. – On December 2, the Cuban artist and political prisoner Luis Manuel Otero Alcántara turned 37 years old. That day, an event was organized in Buenos Aires to commemorate his birthday and demand his release. Since July 11, 2021, Luis Manuel has been held in the Guanajay maximum security prison, in Cuba, for trying to participate in the historic protests of that year, along with thousands of Cubans. The artist was sentenced to five years in prison for his social activism through art and for exercising the right to peaceful demonstration.
The meeting began with a few words dedicated to the artist by the organizing institutions. “Human rights remain the priority of Czech foreign policy. We are here to commemorate the birthday of Luis Manuel Otero Alcántara, who has been in prison in Cuba for three years. Today we want to remember it so that the world does not forget it,” said the ambassador of the Czech Republic in Argentina, HE Ms. Jarmila Povejšilová. On the other hand, the director of CADAL, Gabriel Salvia, recalled a phrase from the speech of Vaclav Havelin 2004 at the Prague Summit for Democracy in Cuba: “I know how important it is for a person to know that there are people out there who are not indifferent to your destiny.” And he added: “This is our message to Luisma. We are connected to it. We hope that he will soon leave prison to return to making his art in Cuba.”
Then, it was the turn of Atemporal Trío who gave an intimate concert at pure rhythm to raise the voice of Luis Manuel. The Cuban musicians Noslen Porrúa, Jessica Zequeira and Mario Miguel Garcia offered a recital with three voices and two guitars that navigated through Cuban son, bolero, folklore, jazz, blues and rock. The trio performed a repertoire with versions of popular songs and their own compositions that were banned. Ladies 955 is a song composed by the trio in tribute to Luis Manuel, which remembers the house where the artist lived as a space of artistic creation and resistance. Other songs they performed are The stakean anti-Franco protest song, and Our day is coming, by Willy Chirino, an emblematic song of the Cuban opposition. For the closing they performed a version of the song Humans, by Pastoral, an Argentine rock duo from the 70s, which in its finale incorporates the recitation of the first part of article 1 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights: “All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights.”
Luis Manuel Otero Alcántara is an artist of performance dissident and one of the founders of the San Isidro Movementa group of leaders of independent culture in Cuba. He is co-founder of the Museum of Dissidence (2016) and the Havana Biennial #00 (2018), alternative projects that manifested themselves through artistic gestures against the power structures in Cuba. In 2021, was honored by the magazine time as one of the 100 most influential personalities in the world. This year, received the prestigious Rafto award of human rights in Norway. In addition, The Washington Oxy Day Foundation awarded him for his courage and the Prince Claus Foundation honored him with the 2022 Impact Awards., for his works that address the critical conditions faced by Cuban citizens. However, the flip side of all these recognitions is the persecution and arrests that Alcántara received since 2018, considering that his actions violate the Decree 349a Cuban legal regulation that requires artists to obtain advance permission for public and private exhibitions and performances. The current reality of this censored artist, along with thousands of other people, is deprived of his freedom for exercising the right to express himself and demonstrate.
This text was written by Belén Ruiz Jelenic, journalist, producer, audiovisual curator and collaborator of the Cuban Latino Dialogue at CADAL (www.cadal.org).
