A distinguished Cuban dissident will go into exile in the US on Saturday after finishing a five-year jail sentence in the communist-run Caribbean nation, in accordance to his supporters and a US embassy official.
Artist Luis Manuel Otero Alcántara has been granted immigration parole in the US, a Facebook web page maintained by household and supporters stated Friday.
“Since early 2023, Luis has accepted exile as the only way to continue his work as an artist and activist, following the relentless repression he has endured,” his supporters stated on Facebook.
“State Security left him no other option for release from prison.”
He can be launched by the Cuban authorities and journey to the US tomorrow along with his household, a US embassy official informed NCS. The official added that the embassy had been pushing for his launch.
NCS has reached out to the US State Department for extra data.
The Cuban authorities has not but commented on his anticipated launch.
Otero Alcántara has been the highest profile dissident jailed in Cuba since the July 11, 2021, protests over Cuba’s lack of freedoms and worsening financial system.
Cubans take to the streets in uncommon anti-government protests
Before his arrest in 2021, Otero Alcántara and different members of his San Isidro Movement used social media to doc their marketing campaign in opposition to official censorship and the Cuban police and safety officers that usually shadowed their each transfer.
His protests and starvation strikes had been a supply of frustration to officers and led to a number of detentions.
In addition to being a critic of the Cuban authorities, Otero Alcántara is an internationally acclaimed artist. He shared a Grammy win for the tune “Patria y Vida” (“Homeland and Life”) that blasted the Cuban authorities’s failures and repression.