MIAMI, United States. — The Embassy of the United States in Cuba remembered today the Cuban artivist and political prisoner Luis Manuel Otero Alcántara, who has been deprived of his liberty since July 11, 2021.
The diplomatic headquarters echoed in social networks of a campaign of the NGO Freedom House that promotes the release of the coordinator of the San Isidro Movement (MSI) and of all the people detained for their political ideas.
“Luis Manuel Otero Alcántara is a dedicated artist who refuses to believe that his community’s artistic freedom can be restricted… and he has 21 arrests, multiple hunger strikes and our 2022 Freedom Award to prove it,” the publication states.
Luis Manuel Otero Alcántara is a dedicated artist who refuses to believe that his community’s artistic freedom can be curtailed…and he has 21 arrests, multiple hunger strikes, and our 2022 Freedom Award to prove it. #FreeThemAll https://t.co/jLCNgHZ1Zk
— Embassy of the United States in Cuba (@USEmbCuba) February 13, 2023
Otero Alcántara is being held in the Guanajay maximum security prison. The artist He was sentenced in June 2022 to five years in prison for the crimes of insulting the symbols of the homeland, contempt and public disorder. The genesis of the sentence against him was in the performance drapeauin which the artist intervened in the public space using the Cuban flag as a garment.
The Prosecutor of the Cuban regime indicated that the sentence against was the “result of the proven facts and the participation of the accused” in them.
Recently, Otero Alcántara ended a hunger and thirst strike that he had started on February 1 in response to the violation of his rights and mistreatment in the prison where he is being held.
In November of last year, the global movement Amnesty International (AI) launched a campaign to demand the release of the artivist. On that occasion, the NGO highlighted that the artist was not receiving adequate medical care in prison despite his delicate state of health.
