Cuban dissident artist Luis Manuel Otero Alcántara arrives in US after prison sentence

Cuban dissident artist Luis Manuel Otero Alcántara has arrived in the United States after completing a five-year prison sentence, U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced. Otero Alcántara, 38, was granted humanitarian parole, and a U.S. Embassy official in Havana confirmed support for his travel.

Otero Alcántara, a co-founder of the opposition San Isidro Movement, was detained in 2021 during anti-government protests and subsequently convicted of offenses including desecration of national symbols, contempt, and public disorder. He served his sentence at the Guanajay prison near Havana.

Rubio stated that Otero Alcántara's "only 'crime' was refusing to stay silent and using his art to demand the basic freedoms everyday Cubans have been denied for almost seven decades." The cases of Otero Alcántara and rapper Maykel Castillo, known as 'Osorbo,' who is serving an eight-year sentence, have been a recurring source of diplomatic tension between Washington and Havana.