The anti-establishment rapper Denis Solís, a former prisoner of conscience recognized by the UN, and later forced exile, is in a situation of extreme poverty in Novi Sad, Serbia, where he has lived since he left Cuba at the end of 2021. The organization Prisoner Defenders has alerted of the situation and refers to a telephone to provide help to the activist, a member of the San Isidro Movement (MSI).
The artist “went out with a cousin and the daughter of this cousin”, as confirmed to 14ymedio At the time of his departure, a relative, although little has been known about him since then, except that he has applied for political asylum and, therefore, cannot work. The rapper has declared that he is having a hard time in Serbia and that he needs to resort to the help they give him in order to survive and pay the rent. “I have reached the limit and I have no way to sustain myself,” he said in a brief message to Marti News.
The arrest of Denis Solís in November 2020 and the subsequent conviction for contempt in a summary trial, opened the spigot of the MSI protests, led by the artist Luis Manuel Otero Alcántara. Its members then began a hunger strike at its headquarters in Havana, from which they were violently evicted by State Security agents disguised as health workers with the excuse of measures to contain the covid-19 pandemic.
The event triggered a protest by more than 300 artists who gathered at the Ministry of Culture to ask for dialogue with the authorities and gave rise to the group 27N, also the seed of Archipelago, led by playwright Yunior García Aguilera. Both he, who now resides in Spain, and Otero Alcántara, currently in prison in Cuba, were reprisals for defying the authorities.
Shortly after, after suffering harassment from the Cuban authorities, he took a flight to Moscow in the direction of Serbia, where Cubans are exempt from visas.
Solís’ release occurred in July 2021, after serving eight months in prison. Shortly afterward, after being harassed by the Cuban authorities, he took a flight to Moscow headed for Serbia, where Cubans are exempt from visas.
His departure was filtered by anonymous accounts at the service of the regime, which released images in which Solís was seen at the José Martí International Airport in Havana, carrying a suitcase and accompanied by relatives.
Luis Robles, known as the young man with the banner, has also suffered the consequences of defending Solís. On December 4, 2020, he took to the streets to demand, sign in hand, the release of the rapper on the San Rafael Boulevard in Havana.
The gesture has earned him a sentence of five years in prison for “responding to a summons” from the influencer Cuban “Alexander Otaola” to speak out” against the detention of Solís, “the police authorities, the leaders of the State and the Government” and to “carry out any act aimed at destabilizing internal order, publicly demonstrate in the streets against the Cuban economic and social system,” according to the ruling.
Solís has said he feels in moral debt to Robles, who currentlyand according to his relatives, he is being mistreated in prison.
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