A famous 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.
The Associated Press reports that Alcantara was greeted at the airport by a crowd that cheered, sang, and held their phones high in the air to take 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 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.
Alcantara co-founded a group of Havana artists, writers and musicians called the San Isidro Movement – named for the neighbourhood 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.
He was held in a maximum security prison, he said, and was expected to be released early last week. But for days, advocates said they still could not contact him and did not know his whereabouts.
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.
