To promote a peaceful transition to a Cuba that respects human rights
and political and economic freedoms
Cuban dissident beaten to death by Castro's revolutionary police ten years ago while another is held hostage today. A call to action
Revolutionary police and state security in Cuba operate with impunity, and victims of repression have no recourse to independent oversight or an independent judiciary in the island because absolute power is centralized in the dictatorship. This raises concerns now for the life of Luis Manuel Otero Alcántara. It is also the reason why people of conscience will be protesting at the Cuban Embassy in Washington DC on May 6, 2021 starting at 4:00pm. Hyperallergic has correctly characterized that Luis Manuel Otero was "forcibly hospitalized" by the regime's police, and Havana Times used the terms "kidnapped and surrounded in a hospital" with regards to the situation under which the Cuban artist and dissident currently finds himself.
“He didn’t ask to be taken from his house, he didn’t ask to receive medical attention from the Cuban public health system. This is a kidnapping,” Camila Remón, one of five members of SIM based in Miami, told Hyperallergic in an interview. “His demands were clear: for his art to be returned, for the police siege of his home to end, and for the government to respect freedom of creation.”
Announcement circulating over social media
The Center for a Free Cuba outlined the danger Luis Manuel Otero Alcántara now faces in Monday's CubaBrief, and highlighted the cases of Laura Pollán Toledo (2011) and Sergio Díaz Larrastegui (2012). Today, this CubaBrief highlights another case that remains unresolved.
Ten years ago the headlines circled the world in English and in Spanish covered by Reuters, the BBC, CNN, AP, EFE that a Cuban dissident and former political prisoner, Juan Wilfredo Soto Garcia (age 46) had been beaten and arrested by Cuban regime police on Thursday, May 5, 2011 while protesting the dictatorship and died early on Sunday May 8, 2011. The beating had been so bad that he required hospitalization. He was buried Sunday, on Mother's Day.
No one ever had to answer for this extrajudicial killing.
Now a hostage video emerges from Cuba, in response to demands of proof of life, and private medical information on Luis Manuel Otero Alcántara made public with a militarized presence around the hospital. There is great reason to be concerned for Luis Manuel's safety. Friends and fellow activists that have tried to see him remain arbitrarily detained. Names that we know of are: Inti Soto, Thais Mailen Franco, Esteban Rodríguez, Mary Karla Ares, Nancy Vera, Yuisan Cancio Vera, Luis Ángel, Felix Modesto and Leonardo Romero, and others are surrounded by regime agents and unable to leave their homes.
This is why Patmos, Center for a Free Cuba, and others are organizing a nonviolent protest at the Cuban Embassy in Washington DC located on 2630 16th St NW, Washington, DC 20009 on May 6, 2021 at 4:00pm to observe the tenth anniversary of the beating death of Juan Wilfredo Soto Garcia, and demand justice for him and others like him, while calling on the Cuban government to free Luis Manuel Otero Alcántara, and meet his three demands.
Luis Manuel Otero Alcantara – Photo: Evelyn Sosa
HAVANA TIMES – In the early morning of May 2, after having cut off cell phones in the area, State Security and medical personnel forcibly entered the home of Cuban artist Luis Manuel Otero in the San Isidro neighborhood of Old Havana
The artist, who had been on a hunger and thirst strike for a week, was transferred to the Calixto García hospital where they have not allowed the arrival of his friends. According to the online newspaper 14ymedio, the place is under strict surveillance, both inside and in the surrounding streets.
According to the authorities, Luis Manuel was subjected to different laboratory tests. Meanwhile, the Cuban government continues its discrediting campaign on State media against all who dissent and especially against Otero. The government wants to pretend that Luis Manuel has not been on a hunger strike, as they hold him by force.
Some relatives and hospital workers have assured that he is being hydrated in a therapy room. However, there are many questions in the air.
If the patient is healthy, why has he been kept in the hospital for more than 48 hours? Why not send him to his house and film him in his usual activities so that the whole world can see if he was lying? Why is there this police deployment around the hospital? Why did they delay in letting the family be around him? Why don’t they let him talk to his friends and members of the San Isidro Movement on the phone?
Why was Luis Manuel on a hunger and thirst strike?
Otero demands that the authorities return his art works that State Security stole from him when they violently broke into his house, prior to his hunger strike. He also demands that they lift the police siege that he has had on him for months, treating him worse than a murderer.
Luis Manuel has been detained, interrogated, and threatened more than a dozen times. Apparently, his art demanding freedom and an end to repressive laws against artists and others who differ from government policies, has the authorities more concerned than the severe shortages of food and basic medicines suffered by the vast majority of the Cuban people.
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