An activist was arrested and remained detained for two days after attempting to present a habeas corpus petition to the Provincial People’s Court of Havana in favor of the artist and political prisoner Luis Manuel Otero Alcántara, as denounced this Monday by activist Anamely Ramos during a live broadcast.
The attempt to file the legal appeal took place on Friday, July 10, but the court was closed despite being a working day, which prevented the submission.
“An activist was arrested while trying to deliver Luis Manuel's habeas corpus, and that person was detained for two days,” Ramos reported, adding that Cuban courts seem to have stopped operating on Fridays, leaving citizens with only Monday to Thursday to submit any legal appeals.
The legal organization Cubalex also attempted to send the request via email to the Provincial Court and the People's Supreme Court, but has documented that the official addresses designated for these procedures are inactive or block messages.
The background of this repression is that Otero Alcántara fully completed his five-year sentence on July 9, yet the regime did not release him, which is why the artist remains in enforced disappearance.
Two days earlier, on July 7, State Security agents transferred him handcuffed from the Guanajay prison in Artemisa in a large operation, without informing his family about his destination.
Since then, no one in his circle has been able to see him or has received any official information about his whereabouts.
"No one has seen Luis Manuel since he was transferred from the Guanajay prison on Tuesday, July 7," Ramos stated.
The only known contact occurred on July 9 itself, when Otero Alcántara briefly managed to communicate with Ramos from a State Security phone during a speakerphone call overseen by agents. According to the activist, it became clear that the regime has no intention of releasing him as long as his parole request to leave Cuba remains unresolved.
In response to the enforced disappearance, the UN Committee on Enforced Disappearances activated an Urgent Action recorded as AU No. 2357/2026, with a deadline until July 25, 2026, for Cuba to provide accountability.
In that context, Ramos strongly criticized the international press accredited in Cuba for passively awaiting the release instead of demanding explanations directly from the regime.
"The situation in Cuba has reached a point where even delivering a habeas corpus requires the intervention of a diplomat. Just observe the level of repression, the complete state of disarray in that country," he emphasized.
For that reason, he announced a formal request to the foreign diplomatic corps accredited in Cuba to collaborate in delivering the legal resource, just as they did in 2022 when they accompanied the artist during his trial.
Cubalex, for its part, warned that the inability to present the habeas corpus "constitutes a new violation of the right to access to justice and exacerbates the defenselessness of Luis Manuel, whose whereabouts continue to remain officially unreported."
The deadline set by the UN for the Cuban regime to account for the whereabouts of Otero Alcántara is July 25, 2026.
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