The Cuban comedian Ulises Toirac published a statement this Sunday demanding the release of all political prisoners in Cuba, not just Luis Manuel Otero Alcántara, and denounced the regime's practices for eliminating opponents through what he described as kidnappings and covert deportations.
«Luis Manuel Otero alone is not enough; everyone who is imprisoned for their ideas and for expressing them should be released. Without kidnappings and without deporting them under disguise,» Toirac wrote in the text published on his Facebook account.
The publication comes one day after Otero Alcántara, co-founder of the San Isidro Movement and one of the most emblematic figures of the repression unleashed after the protests of July 11, 2021, arrived in Miami after serving five years in a maximum-security prison in Guanajay, Artemisa.
His liberation was conditioned on permanent and irrevocable exile, a practice that the regime has historically used to neutralize high-profile opponents without allowing them to continue their activism on the island.
Toirac also mentioned the case of professor Alina Bárbara López Hernández, who suffers from systematic harassment and repression by the Cuban political police for publicly expressing her ideas. "No one should be pursued, harassed, or kidnapped as often happens to Professor Alina Bárbara López Hernández and others," he emphasized.
The historian and activist was detained by State Security in Matanzas this Saturday while attempting to carry out her monthly civic protest on the 18th, which coincided this time with International Nelson Mandela Day.
In his post, Toirac also harshly criticized the dynamics of social media and the lack of unity among those who oppose the regime.
"The networks are like a school of hate. The home of gossip and nonsense. The drug that causes a high of stupidity mixed with bravery behind the phone and the intelligence of a protozoon," he said.
The comedian warned that this internal fragmentation ultimately benefits the regime: "They don't want clarity, they remain stuck in their own insufficiency, they exploit, they question, they complain, and in the process, they do the work for those who want them without unity."
The statement aligns with the diagnosis that Toirac has maintained throughout 2026, when he described Cuba as a "labyrinth without a solution" and questioned the government's selective pardons, which exclude those convicted of "crimes against authority", a category used to prosecute the protesters of July 11 and dissidents in general.
Toirac concluded his publication with a warning that summarizes his stance: "And then they criticize me when I declare that this will never be fixed. The freedom to express an opinion carries the responsibility of exercising it."
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