Currently, there are over 1,300 identified political prisoners in Cuba according to the Madrid based NGO, Prisoners Defenders.
Over the past five years, Cuban artist Luis Manuel Otero Alcántara was one of them.
Unjustly imprisoned, he should not have spent one day in prison, much less the 1,826 days he was arbitrarily detained. Only to be kidnapped by the secret police on July 7, 2026, two days prior to his release, then held incommunicado for 11 days. Only to be forcibly deported.
On July 18, 2026 Luis Manuel was on a plane to Miami, leaving behind his son, family, friends, history and home. He gave his first interview to the major U.S. daily, USA TODAY, three days later. Below is an excerpt from the article and video.
People in Cuba think exile is the solution, “but there’s a new kind of rift here, a new type of state-sponsored violence: people going 30 years without seeing their moms or kids – their mothers die, and they aren’t allowed to come back,” Otero said, sitting on the pool deck of a Miami hotel.
“You can’t say goodbye… You can’t give them a kiss… And now my son…” Otero dropped his face into his hands and wept.
Amnesty International on July 23rd issued a formal statement regarding the arrival of the Cuban artist and prisoner of conscience to the United States.
“Luis Manuel Otero Alcántara’s arrival in the United States brings an end to years of unjust imprisonment and underscores the harm caused by the Cuban authorities, as well as the state’s responsibility for imprisoning him solely for exercising his human rights. Luis Manuel should never have spent a single day in prison. What he endured will remain a symbol of how the Cuban government has used the criminal justice system to punish art, dissent and freedom of expression,” said Ana Piquer, Amnesty International’s Americas Director.
Ms Piquer added, “While it is a relief that Luis Manuel is free, it is essential to remember that his exile is an extension of the punishment imposed on those who dare to think differently, create freely or denounce human rights violations in Cuba. Everyone must be able to live freely, express themselves and participate in public life without being forced to leave their country.”
On July 27, 2026 in the publication ARTFORUM, Cuban artist Coco Fusco interviewed Cuban artist and former political prisoner Luis Manuel. Below is an excerpt.
Coco Fusco: How are you feeling now that you’ve been able to leave Guanajay Prison and come to the United States?
Luis Manuel Otero Alcántara: I’m getting used to things; it’s going pretty well. Psychologically, I’m still a bit in shock. I’m coming out of five years in a prison where everything was gray, where everything was structured military-style. I’m learning to function according to my own sense of time again. I’m having to relearn what fashion is, what beauty is. So much information is flooding into my head right now.
On the more political side of things, I’m coming out of prison confinement and into another kind of confinement and violence, as I’ve now gone into exile. Everyone knows how hard it is for me to leave my son behind, to leave my life and my country behind, and yet people congratulate me. It’s a difficult time for me.
In an interview with Luz Escobar for 14ymedio published the same day in Diario de Cuba, Luis Manuel offered an insight into this new chapter of his life.
“I believe that the struggle for Cuba’s freedom must be creative and constantly revamped in the light of new challenges,” Otero stated when asked where he believes the struggle for the island’s freedom stands today, given that many members of the San Isidro Movement (MSI), which he founded, and participants in the July 2021 anti-government protests are now abroad.
“Fifteen years ago, I was afraid to place a sculpture in the middle of a park. I would go to the Capitol grounds, set up an elephant, and be absolutely terrified. As the repression intensified, I continued to evolve, but that creativity of mine never ceased to exist,” he explained.
“There was a moment when I was locked up under house arrest and unable to perform in public, but my paintings of chocolates stirred such strong reactions that they had to come in and destroy them. [Note: during this period, the artist produced a series of colorful paintings depicting the wrappers of sweets such as M & M’s, Nesquik, and Adams’ chiclets that were unavailable in Cuba] Later, I had a stay at the Calixto Garcia Hospital, (where he was forcibly taken by agents of the Cuban regime after embarking on a hunger strike to protest the destruction of his works) and later to prison, always proposing creative experiences,” he added.
“We are living at a time when the situation and repression in Cuba are extremely difficult, and we, as creative individuals, must respond creatively. I am now in exile: exile will speak to me, and I will respond; the reality of Cuba will speak to me from here, and I will respond; and all of that will be a new experience,” said the artist. He doesn’t believe in repeating “the same things we did during the San Isidro Movement, because we are not living in the times when San Isidro was born.”
In EL PAÍS in an interview published on July 28, 2026 he offers a critique of the existing system in Cuba.
“The homeland is not what [Cuban independence hero José] Martí wrote in a book a thousand years ago. The homeland is the people who walk the streets. That homeland is malnourished,” he says. “In Cuba there is a kind of total cannibalism that stems from a system’s dehumanized indifference. If the system can’t solve your hunger, your medical needs, if it doesn’t protect you but expels you and you have no representation or sense of protection, who would want that? Of course the leadership would —the very small clique that lives off it and is corrupt.”
The National Endowment for Democracy (NED) “to mark America’s 250th anniversary, selected winners championing the fundamental freedoms enshrined in the First Amendment—freedom of religion, speech, press, assembly, and petition—which shaped the founding of the United States and continue to inspire freedom movements around the world today.”
Three of the 2026 Democracy Awards honorees are Cubans. At the time of the announcement Luis Manuel Otero Alcántara was recently exiled, but Félix Navarro and Maykel Castillo Pérez remain unjustly imprisoned. Former Congress woman Ileana Ros Lehtinen and Eddy Acevedo, vice president of policy and government relations at the National Endowment for Democracy, in an OpEd published in NewsMax titled “Cuba’s Call for Freedom Shines Bright” highlighted their plight.
This CubaBrief ends inviting you to sign a petition to prioritize the plight of Cuban political prisoners, and echoing Amnesty International’s call for the immediate and unconditional release of “all prisoners of conscience, including Maykel Castillo Pérez ‘Osorbo’, as well as Sayli Navarro Álvarez, Félix Navarro Rodríguez, Loreto Hernández García, Donaida Pérez Paseiro, Roberto Pérez Fonseca and everyone unjustly detained for political reasons in Cuba.”
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