The Provincial Popular Court of Havana and the Supreme Popular Court remained closed on Friday, July 10, despite being a working day, preventing the filing of a habeas corpus petition in favor of the artist and political prisoner Luis Manuel Otero Alcántara, who is under forced disappearance, as documented by the organization Cubalex in a statement released this Monday.
The court's closure was not the only obstacle: the activist who attempted to submit the appeal was arrested and remained in custody for two days.
The activist Anamely Ramos also denounced the situation in a live broadcast on Facebook this Monday, and warned that the pattern is not incidental.
"It seems that they are no longer going to work on Fridays, meaning that Cubans only have from Monday to Thursday to submit the habeas corpus or whatever it is in the courts," he noted.
Due to the inability to access the court physically, the action was sent via email to both judicial instances. However, Cubalex has confirmed that the email addresses provided by the authorities to receive citizen complaints are either inactive or block the messages sent.
The organization warned that "the lack of official information regarding the whereabouts of Luis Manuel Otero Alcántara, combined with the obstacles to accessing effective judicial resources, deepens the risk to his personal integrity and constitutes a serious violation of the guarantees of due process and the right to effective judicial protection."
For his part, Ramos announced that he will appeal to diplomats from democratic countries accredited in Cuba to assist in delivering the resource, as activists on the island face direct reprisals for attempting to do so.
"The situation in Cuba has reached a point where even delivering a habeas corpus requires the intervention of a diplomat. Notice the level of repression, the total breakdown that exists in that country," he stated.
Otero Alcántara was released from the Guanajay prison, in Artemisa, on July 7, in an operation carried out by State Security agents and military forces, two days before his five-year sentence officially ended, which was set for July 9, 2026, according to ruling no. 10/2026 from the People's Supreme Court.
Since then, the Cuban authorities have refused to inform his family about his whereabouts and keep him isolated, in a situation that constitutes a forced disappearance, despite the fact that he has already fully served the imposed sentence.
The only known contact occurred on July 9, when the artist communicated with Ramos from a State Security phone, in a speakerphone call under the supervision of agents.
According to the activist, the agents made it clear that Otero Alcántara will remain in custody while the parole request for his possible departure to the United States is pending.
"Since Thursday, we haven't heard anything from Luis Manuel, since that call he made to me from one of the State Security's phones, a call that was also on speaker, meaning they were listening to what Luis Manuel and I were discussing," Ramos recounted.
The activist summarized the regime's stance sharply: "The Cuban state is cynically making it clear once again that it is silence, prison, or exile."
The UN Committee on Enforced Disappearances activated an Urgent Action last Thursday, registered under reference AU No. 2357/2026, at the request of Cubalex, and granting the Cuban regime a non-extendable deadline until July 25 to present an official report on the situation of the artist.
Amnesty International also classified the case as enforced disappearance.
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