Cuban artist Luis Manuel Otero Alcántara’s unjust five-year sentence ended on July 9, but he is not yet free. His whereabouts are unknown. State Security agents removed him from Guanajay Prison on Tuesday, July 7, and whisked him off to an undisclosed location. His relatives say they have not been notified. Human Rights organizations have determined his current status to be a forced disappearance. Yesterday, Cuban activist Anamely Ramos received a phone call from an unidentified number and heard Otero Alcántara on a speakerphone, presumably surrounded by security agents, inquiring about the status of his request to enter the United States. When she asked where he was, he told her he could not say.
The artist was arrested in July 2021 on trumped-up charges after joining historic demonstrations across the island. Cuban authorities are under pressure to release Otero Alcántara, not only from activists but also from US government officials, who regularly invoke his name as evidence of the regime’s human rights violations. On Monday, July 6, US Ambassador to the United Nations Mike Walz held up a photo of the artist as he confronted Cuban officials during a debate about the US embargo against Cuba. The island is experiencing its worst humanitarian crisis in decades, due to the Trump Administration’s current “maximum pressure” campaign against the Cuban government and years of economic mismanagement by the regime. Power outages lasting days are common, public transportation is virtually non-existent, mountains of garbage line the streets, hospitals are collapsing, and food prices have skyrocketed.Â
The Cuban government appears to have no intention of allowing Otero Alcántara to remain on the island, likely fearing that he could easily rally supporters to stage more protests against a beleaguered government on the verge of collapse. Since the July 2021 protests, when Otero Alcántara was arrested, the Cuban government has also increased its persecution of influencers who criticize their government on social media.
What remains unclear is where Otero Alcántara could be expelled to. The artist has made his willingness to accept exile in the US public since 2024. An application for humanitarian parole, which I helped prepare, was submitted to the US Embassy several weeks ago. Scores of articles about him have appeared in foreign press in the weeks leading up to the end of his sentence. Nonetheless, there is no answer yet from the United States. In the meantime, it seems that Otero Alcántara is going to remain a hostage of the Cuban government.  Â
According to former political prisoner Hamlet Lavastida, the regime is employing the same tactic they used on him. He has told me that Otero Alcántara is probably being held in one of State Security’s “protocol houses,” where they prepare political prisoners for departure and escort them to foreign embassies to pick up their visas prior to putting them on planes. Both Lavastida and Cuban activists point to Otero Alcántara’s extreme vulnerability in his current situation, suggesting that he could be subject to psychological manipulation and threats while he remains in captivity.Â
While incarcerated, Otero Alcántara had the support of fellow prisoners. He could make phone calls to family and friends to inform them of happenings inside the prison. He now awaits his release in limbo, cut off from the rest of the world. His many supporters in the US and Europe continue to stage public protests calling for his release, but Otero Alcántara’s fate, and that of Cuba’s more than 800 political prisoners, remain up in the air for the time being.
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