Luis Manuel Otero Alcántara
Detained Since: July 11, 2021.
Charges: Crimes against State Security, public disorder.
Sentence: 5 years in prison.
Biography: Luis Manuel Otero Alcántara is a self-taught Cuban artist and human rights defender. His home in San Isidro, one of the poorest neighborhoods in Havana, was a haven for the community, an open house for people to meet and connect. Since 2017, Luis Manuel has been systematically harassed by the Cuban government and detained dozens of times for his performance pieces, sometimes in jail and sometimes in a pre-trial "preventative prison." Despite—or, really, because of—the intensity of the government's crackdowns, Luis Manuel continued to perform his "artivist" pieces and faced detention and persecution. Frustrated by Decree 349, a law seeking to silence critical artists, Luis Manuel became a leader of the San Isidro Movement (Movimiento San Isidro). MSI was a diverse group of artists, journalists, and activists defending the right to freedom of expression whose members were intimidated, surveilled, and detained.
On April 16, 2021, the police raided the MSI headquarters again and seized and destroyed Luis Manuel's artwork. According to the Organization of American States, between April 17 and April 25, Alcántara was detained eight times within 100 meters of his home. On May 2, 2021, state security officials took Luis Manuel from his home, where he was on hunger strike protesting against the confiscation of his artworks by the authorities. He was taken to a hospital and denied access to the outside world. Upon his release a month later, security officials continued to watch his every move. On July 11, 2021, Luis Manuel posted a video online saying he would participate in one of Cuba's largest demonstrations in decades. He was arrested before he joined the protest and taken to the notorious Villa Marista prison in Havana. Later, he was transferred to a maximum-security prison in Guanajay, where he remains. On June 24, 2022, following a closed-door trial with significant police presence, Luis Manuel was sentenced to five years for "contempt" and "public disorder," crimes that the Cuban government commonly uses to criminalize activists and political opponents. The definitions of these crimes in the Criminal Code are ambiguous, and they are used arbitrarily to justify imprisoning people for acts that should not be considered crimes, such as criticizing or insulting an authority. The new Cuban Penal Code, which came into force in December 2022, not only kept these provisions in force but increased the minimum penalties applicable for these crimes. Among Luis Manuel's actions that the court considered criminal were posting texts and images of political protest on social media, participating in demonstrations, singing a protest song in the street, and "insulting national symbols."
In February 2023, the United Nations Working Group on Arbitrary Detention (UNWGAD) issued an opinion concluding that Luis Manuel's arrest was arbitrary and violated international law. The UNWGAD concluded the Cuban regime imprisoned him without any legal basis, and the arrests resulted from exercising their right to freedom of expression: Using art as a form of activism.
Luis Manuel has been in and out of solitary confinement with little opportunity to see sunlight and has been given inadequate food and medical attention. He experienced temporary facial paralysis from one of the various hunger and thirst strikes he carried out in prison and has been fainting from some unknown cause. In August 2022, his Twitter account shared anecdotes of the brutal conditions in Guanajay. Luis Manuel said: "Every day is the same. Violence is constant. Only one's body changes. Your hair falls out, and your face ages prematurely from pain, frustration, and sadness. All you hear is the murmur of death slowly approaching."
Luis Manuel was named one of the most influential people of 2021 by Time magazine for his unignorable fight for freedom of expression and his uncompromising stance against autocracy. In May 2022, Freedom House awarded Luis Manuel and Maykel Castillo Pérez its Freedom Award as leaders of Cuba's Movimiento San Isidro (MSI). In December 2022, Luis Manuel received the Price Clause Impact Award. This award is presented every two years to artists and cultural practitioners in recognition of both the excellent quality of their work and their positive contribution to the development of their society.
Advocacy Partner: Amnesty International USA & Freedom House
Advocate: Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-FL)
Updates:
- On November 7, 2023, Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-FL) announced her Defending Freedoms Project advocacy for Luis Manuel Otero Alcántara and Maykel "Osorbo" Castillo Pérez during a speech on the house floor (November 7, 2023, Office of Congresswoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz).
- On the anniversary of the pro-democracy protests in Cuba, Rep. Wasserman Schultz released a letter to Secretary of State Marco Rubio urging him to intervene in the release of Luis Manuel Otero Alcántara and Maykel "Osorbo" Castillo Pérez (July 10, 2025, Office of Congresswoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz).