Luis Manuel Otero Alcántara acknowledged in an interview with Tania Costa for CiberCuba that he chose to be honest about the differential treatment he received during his five years in prison in Cuba, even though that honesty may not have been what many expected to hear from him upon his arrival in exile.
The artist and co-founder of the Movimiento San Isidro arrived in Miami on July 18 in a condition of forced exile, after serving a five-year sentence in the Guanajay prison imposed in June 2022 for charges that human rights organizations deemed politically motivated.
"The easiest thing to do was to say that the dictatorship had me kidnapped. That whole narrative is what we know people expected and what works. But I wasn’t going to be honest," Otero Alcántara declared.
The activist explained that his prison experience cannot be generalized or compared to that of other Cuban political prisoners, and that his international visibility ensured he received different treatment than those who do not have that level of public exposure.
"One must be smart and realize that at my level of visibility, which is me, there is undoubtedly a different treatment towards me compared to other people. That is what needs to be understood," he stated.
Otero Alcántara rejected the idea that acknowledging this differential treatment equates to defending the regime, and he drew a clear line between his position and that of the Cuban regime. "The dictatorship is not honest. The dictatorship is corrupt. The dictatorship is dishonest. The dictatorship tells lies about people. I cannot be dishonest."
A second focus of his statements was the situation of Maykel Osorbo (Maykel Castillo Pérez), his companion from the San Isidro Movement, who remains imprisoned in Guanajay despite the fact that the United States granted him humanitarian parole on July 21, 2026.
Otero Alcántara speculated about the reasons why the regime has not released Osorbo and recalled a revealing anecdote: during a tour of Vedado, a guard spontaneously recognized his colleague, illustrating the level of popular connection that the artist has.
"A character like Maykel Osorbo, Maykel Castillo Pérez, my friend, my brother, was capable of mobilizing," he said.
For Otero Alcántara, the Cuban regime does not act out of error but rather calculation, and it knows better than anyone the political weight of the San Isidro Movement. "They possibly have better gauges than we, the opponents, do regarding the Cuban reality. That means they know; they are certain of the impact the San Isidro Movement, Maykel Osorbo, and Luis Manuel Alcántara currently have on the streets."
Regarding the refusal to release Osorbo, he was straightforward. "Why don't they release Maykel? Because I can imagine they don't want him to join this new whirlwind, because then it will truly be devastating. It's like the fourth leg of the cat."
In this vein, he described the regime as a structure "suffocated, throwing tantrums," aware of its own weakness in the face of the symbolic and popular strength of the movement that he and Osorbo represent.
Otero Alcántara concluded that part of the interview with a direct call: "We must continue working, we must keep pushing for Maykel's freedom."
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