By Maria Alejandra Cardona<\/p>\n
MIAMI, July 18 (Reuters) \u2013 Cuban dissident artist Luis Manuel Otero Alc\u00e1ntara arrived in the United States on Saturday after completing a five-year prison sentence on the communist-run island.<\/p>\n
Otero Alc\u00e1ntara, \u200bco-founder of Cuba\u2019s opposition San Isidro Movement, was welcomed in Miami \u200cby a group of singing supporters and visited the National Shrine of Our Lady of Charity.<\/p>\n
Speaking outside the church to journalists and members of the Cuban community, he thanked the U.S. and the European Union and reiterated calls for a change of government \u200cin \u200bCuba.<\/p>\n
\u201cI believe the dictatorship has to end, and \u2060the Castro dynasty has to \u2060end, as well,\u201d Otero Alc\u00e1ntara said. \u201cBecause as long as there is a Castro in power, there will be corruption.\u201d<\/p>\n
Responsibility for rebuilding the country lies with Cubans themselves, he said. \u201cCuba\u2019s future depends on us, the Cuban \u200bpeople,\u201d Otero Alc\u00e1ntara said.<\/p>\n
Otero Alc\u00e1ntara, 38, was detained by Cuban authorities in 2021 amidst the largest anti-government protests seen in Cuba in decades. \u2060He was convicted of offenses including desecration \u2060of national symbols, contempt and public disorder, and spent five \u200byears in the Guanajay prison near Havana.<\/p>\n
U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced \u200bOtero Alc\u00e1ntara\u2019s arrival in a statement earlier without providing details \u200cof his whereabouts.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe Cuban government\u2019s brutal crackdown against its own people five years ago is yet another reminder of the unique misery and evil that is innate to the communist system,\u201d Rubio said, urging the release of all \u2060political prisoners in Cuba.<\/p>\n
\u201cOtero Alc\u00e1ntara\u2019s only \u2018crime\u2019 was refusing to stay silent and using his art to demand the basic freedoms everyday Cubans have been denied for \u2060almost seven decades.\u201d<\/p>\n
A U.S. \u200cEmbassy official in Havana on Friday said Otero Alc\u00e1ntara \u2060had been granted humanitarian parole.<\/p>\n
Cuban authorities had previously offered \u200bhim \u200cthe option of leaving the country in exchange for \u200ban early \u2060release, an alternative Otero Alc\u00e1ntara repeatedly rejected.<\/p>\n
The cases of Otero Alc\u00e1ntara and rapper Maykel Castillo, known as \u201cOsorbo,\u201d who is serving an eight-year prison sentence, have been a recurring source of diplomatic tension between\u00a0Washington and Havana.<\/p>\n
(Reporting by Maria Alejandra Cardona in Miami and Doina Chiacu in Washington; Editing by Sergio Non, Alistair Bell \u200band Lincoln Feast.)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"By Maria Alejandra Cardona MIAMI, July 18 (Reuters) \u2013 Cuban dissident artist Luis Manuel Otero Alc\u00e1ntara arrived in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":771397,"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-771396","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\/771396","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=771396"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/771396\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/771397"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=771396"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=771396"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=771396"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}