Free Cuba Now!

To promote a peaceful transition to a Cuba that respects human rights and political and economic freedoms   Cuban dissident Orlando Zapata Tamayo's 2010 extrajudicial killing should alert activists to Luis Manuel Otero Alcántara's plight today. Cuban dissidents Orlando Zapata Tamayo and Luis Manuel Otero Alcántara   France 24 reported today that " seven months after his arrest, loved ones of Cuban dissident artist Luis Manuel Otero Alcántara worry for his health, locked away mostly incommunicado in a high-security prison." Family members and friends of Luis Manuel are right to be worried. The track record of the Cuban dictatorship towards nonviolent dissidents is not a good one. Luis Manuel Otero Alcántara is a poor, black Cuban dissident and human rights defender recognized by Amnesty International as a prisoner of conscience. Today marks the 12 year anniversary of the death of Orlando Zapata Tamayo. Orlando Zapata was a poor, black Cuban dissident and human rights defender recognized by Amnesty International as a prisoner of conscience. Orlando Zapata was a bricklayer, and a human rights defender while Luis Manuel is a performance artist, and a human rights defender. Orlando Zapata was unjustly imprisoned in the Spring of 2003, tortured by Cuban prison officials and state security agents over the next six years and ten months. He died on February 23, 2010 following a prolonged hunger strike, aggravated by prison guards repeatedly refusing him water. He had been jailed, and harassed before for his human rights activism, and demonized by the Castro regime. Luis Manuel Otero Alcántara was unjustly imprisoned on July 11, 2021, has been mistreated by prison officials, and periodically held incommunicado. " The last time his girlfriend Claudia Genlui could speak to Alcantara, by telephone, was on January 18. Since then, he has started a hunger strike. It's not his first'", reports France24. Cuban opposition leader Oswaldo Payá Sardiñas, who was killed under suspicious circumstances on July 22, 2012, issued a statement on the same day that regime officials had reported Orlando had died. Oswaldo Payá appeared in a photograph holding up a photocopy of the martyred human rights defender's name and image. "Orlando Zapata Tamayo, died this afternoon, February 23, 2010, after suffering many indignities, racist slights, beatings and abuse by prison guards and State Security. Zapata was killed slowly over many days and many months in every prison in which he was confined. Zapata was imprisoned for denouncing human rights violations and for daring to speak openly of the Varela Project in Havana's Central Park. He was not a terrorist, or conspirator, or used violence. Initially he was sentenced to three years in prison, but after successive provocations and maneuvers staged by his executioners, he was sentenced to more than thirty years in prison." Facing the Embassy of Cuba in Washington DC tonight.   This is a worrisome pattern that has been repeated in other cases since 2010, and there is deep concern for the life of Luis Manuel Otero Alcántara and scores of other activists. This is why today at 6:00pm outside of the Cuban embassy in Washington DC a vigil for Orlando Zapata Tamayo, and other victims of Castroism was initiated, and an online petition, that has already gathered over 500 signatures, continues to circulate calling for the release of Cuba's political prisoners, and that the International Committee of the Red Cross be granted access to all Cuban prisons.         Read Full Article       Center for a Free Cuba 417 West Broad Street, Suite 204 Falls Church, VA 22046 www.cubacenter.org