Prominent Cuban activist Luis Manuel Otero Alcántara arrives in Miami after prison release
A prominent Cuban artist and political prisoner arrived in Miami, on Saturday after being released from a five-year prison sentence on the condition that he leave his country.
Video posted to Facebook captured the moment Luis Manuel Otero Alcántara walked out of the international arrivals doors at Miami International Airport. They draped him in a Cuban flag, printed with the words "Patria y Vida" — "Homeland and Life" — the title of a song he shared a Grammy for that became an anthem for Cuba's political opposition against repression.
The United States granted him parole into the country earlier this week, according to a social media page maintained by his friends and supporters. They wrote that he accepted exile as the only way to escape persecution and continue his art and activism.
Alcántara co-founded a group of Havana artists, writers and musicians called the San Isidro Movement — named for the neighborhood where Alcántara lived.
Alcántara was arrested during the nationwide protests that swept Cuba on July 11, 2021. He was convicted of public disorder, contempt and disrespect toward national symbols.
Draped in a Cuban flag, Alcántara told the crowd his first words in English: "Super bien! Very good. Very good!"
He said the joy of being free is what he wants for every Cuban still on the island.
"I wants to tell the people of Cuba you can do it. I went to prison, and I didn't think in a million years it was a possibility," Alcántara said in Spanish.
His message to those still in Cuba was direct.
"The message is you have to keep fighting. You have to keep fighting for the liberty," he said in Spanish.
U.S. Rep. Carlos Gimenez posted a response on X following Alcántara's release.
"Luis Manuel is not a criminal. He is a Cuban patriot whose only fault was refusing to be silenced," Gimenez said in part.
Alcántara's arrest and incarceration had long been denounced by human rights organizations and the U.S. government. Groups including Amnesty International called him a political prisoner, an allegation the Cuban government rejected.
Alcántara was held in a maximum-security prison, he said, and was expected to be released last week. But for days, advocates said they still could not contact him and did not know where he was.
The organization Cubalex, which legally advises dissidents and reports human rights violations from outside of the country, filed a habeas corpus petition on his behalf Monday.
Until he boarded a plane Saturday, his advocates were not sure of his location, or if he was truly free.
His said his first stop on American soil would be at the Shrine of Our Lady of Charity to make an offering.
Other political prisoners remained imprisoned, including his fellow artist Maykel "Osorbo" Castillo Pérez, his advocates said, and they hoped Alcántara's release would prompt insistence that Pérez also be set free.
Alcántara brought from Cuba a broken statue of the Virgin Mary, which he described as a symbol of hope and healing, a chance to put back together something from fragments.