MADRID, Spain.- Cuban artist and political prisoner Luis Manuel Otero Alcántara is ill in the Guanajay maximum security prison, where he is serving a five-year prison sentence.
The activist and friend of Otero Alcántara, Yanelys Núñez, learned about his state of health, who this week was able to speak with him by telephone.
“All this about diseases in prison always worries me, because we know of all these disease outbreaks that exist and of complaints that have already been made in different prisons in the country. So, for this reason, in the face of any warning that he makes me, I denounce him, “he told Radio Television MartYo the opposition, exiled in Madrid since March 2019.
He has a lot of migraine and fever, Núñez said. In addition, he pointed out that Luis Manuel “is surviving as he can.”
In his statements to the aforementioned media, he also announced that Alcántara is looking forward to the visit that the high representative of Foreign Policy of the European Union (EU), Josep Borrell, begins this Wednesday to Cuba, and to whom numerous organizations they have asked him to intercede by political prisoners of the regime during their stay on the island.
Luis Manuel Otero Alcántara was sentenced to five years in prison in June 2022, in a trial held behind closed doors, for the alleged crimes of outrage against the symbols of the country, contempt and public disorder.
In prison, he has carried out several hunger strikes that have worsened his already weakened health due to the lack of medical attention in the prison. One of these strikes left scars in one eye and caused paralysis.
While incarcerated, the prestigious American magazine Time chose it as one of the most influential people of 2021; and received the prize Impact Prince Claus 2022.
