By Ayose Naranjo<\/p>\n
HAVANA, July 17 (Reuters) \u2013 Cuban dissident artist Luis Manuel Otero Alc\u00e1ntara is expected to travel to the United States in the coming days after completing a five-year prison sentence, according to a message posted \u200bby his family on Facebook.<\/p>\n
A U.S. embassy official in Havana confirmed that \u200cOtero Alc\u00e1ntara had been granted humanitarian parole and said the embassy was working to support his travel as soon as possible.<\/p>\n
Otero Alc\u00e1ntara, 38, co-founder of the opposition San Isidro Movement, was detained on July 11, 2021, amidst the largest anti-government protests seen in Cuba in decades. He was convicted \u200cof \u200boffenses including desecration of national symbols, contempt and public \u2060disorder, and spent five years \u2060in the Guanajay prison near Havana.<\/p>\n
Cuban authorities had previously offered the artist the option of leaving the country in exchange for his release, an alternative Otero Alc\u00e1ntara repeatedly rejected. However, in a 2024 interview from prison with El Pa\u00eds, he \u200backnowledged that he was reconsidering exile.<\/p>\n
\u201cI never thought about leaving, but the regime argues there is no option for me to walk Cuba\u2019s streets because of the \u2060danger they have made people believe I represent,\u201d \u2060he told the Spanish newspaper.<\/p>\n
The cases of Otero Alc\u00e1ntara and \u200brapper Maykel Castillo, known as \u201cOsorbo,\u201d who is serving an eight-year prison sentence, have been a \u200brecurring source of diplomatic tension between Washington and Havana.<\/p>\n
Earlier this month, \u200cU.S. Ambassador Michael Waltz criticized Cuba\u2019s human rights record during an address at the U.N. General Assembly and displayed images and names of political prisoners, including Otero Alc\u00e1ntara.<\/p>\n
The news of Otero\u2019s imminent departure from Cuba comes days after his supporters filed a habeas \u2060corpus petition with Havana\u2019s Provincial People\u2019s Court on July 13 on behalf of the artist.<\/p>\n
Anamely Ramos, an activist and close friend of the artist who lives in the United States, \u2060said in a Facebook \u200cpost that Otero Alc\u00e1ntara had spent several days at an \u2060undisclosed location in Cuban state custody after completing his five-year \u200bsentence and \u200cleaving Guanajay prison.<\/p>\n
Cuban authorities didn\u2019t immediately respond to a request \u200bfor comment \u2060on Otero\u2019s departure. The Cuban government maintains that those imprisoned following the July 11, 2021, protests had committed crimes, such as arson or public disorder, and that they were not imprisoned for their political activism.<\/p>\n
In 2021, following his arrest, Time magazine included him on its list of the world\u2019s 100 most influential people.<\/p>\n
(Reporting by Ayose Naranjo in Havana; \u200bEditing by Sanjeev Miglani)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"By Ayose Naranjo HAVANA, July 17 (Reuters) \u2013 Cuban dissident artist Luis Manuel Otero Alc\u00e1ntara is expected to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":769559,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[23,3,21,19,22,20,25,24],"class_list":["post-769558","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-united-states","tag-america","tag-news","tag-united-states","tag-united-states-of-america","tag-unitedstates","tag-unitedstatesofamerica","tag-us","tag-usa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/769558","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=769558"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/769558\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/769559"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=769558"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=769558"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=769558"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}