Cuban dissident artist and musician Luis Manuel Otero Alcantara arrived in Miami on Saturday after being released from a five-year prison sentence on the condition that he leave his country.Alcantara was greeted at the airport by a crowd that was cheering, singing and holding their phones high in the air to get a photo of him. 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 US granted him parole into the country earlier this week, according to a social media page maintained by his friends and supporters.
Cuban dissident Luis Manuel Otero Alcantara, center right, is greeted by members of the Cuban community upon his arrival at the National Shrine of Our Lady of Charity in Miami on Saturday.
He accepted exile as the only way to escape persecution and continue his art and activism, they wrote.Alcantara cofounded a group of Havana artists, writers and musicians called the San Isidro Movement — named for the neighborhood where Alcantara lived.
He was arrested on July 11, 2021, during a public protest. In 2022, a court sentenced him to five years in prison for public disorder, contempt and disrespect toward national symbols.His arrest and incarceration had long been denounced by human rights organizations and the US government. Groups including Amnesty International called him a political prisoner, an allegation the Cuban government rejected.Alcantara was held in a maximum security prison and was expected to be released last week, but for days, advocates said they could not contact him and did not know where he was.Until he boarded a plane Saturday, his advocates were not sure of his location, or if he was truly free.He said his first stop on US 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 Perez, his advocates said, adding that they hoped Alcantara’s release would prompt insistence that Perez also be set free.Alcantara 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.
