Luis Manuel Otero Alcántara is a Cuban independent activist and artist born in Cuba on December 2, 1987. Known for his performances that criticize government management and policy, he is a leader and member of the San Isidro Movement. This movement, composed of a collective of artists and creators, aims to promote, protect, and defend civil and cultural rights in Cuba.
Otero has suffered, like many Cuban activists, numerous detentions by the Cuban police and State Security. He has recently made headlines following the hacking of the San Isidro Movement's Facebook account (August 2020) and the publication of intimate photos of the artist with the intention of tarnishing his image, which has resulted in widespread support from his followers.
In February 2020, Otero traveled through the city to highlight its construction deterioration and staged a performance aimed at drawing attention to the collapses, including the tragic death of three girls after a balcony fell on them in the Jesús María neighborhood of Old Havana. As a result of this action, Otero was arrested.
In March of that same year, he was arrested while heading to a "kiss-in" in front of the Cuban Institute of Radio and Television due to the censorship of a gay kiss in the film Love, Simon. On this occasion, dozens of artists (Silvio Rodríguez, Pedro Luis Ferrer, Carlos Varela, Athanai, Yotuel (Orishas), the Deputy Assistant Secretary for Western Hemisphere Affairs of the U.S., Michael G. Kozak, and Amnesty International, among others) joined the call for the release of the Cuban after being imprisoned for over 2 weeks and facing the threat of a sentence of two to five years in prison for the alleged crime of property damage. Regarding those calls for release, Diaz Canel stated that "Cuban artists must be part of the revolution."
In 2019, Otero Alcántara was summoned by State Security on the very day that the Kings of Spain began their official visit to the Island and was arrested on the charge of "public disorder."
Alcántara has been the target of numerous attacks from the Cuban state media, a group of artists who support the government, and by the president of the National Council of Plastic Arts, Norma Rodríguez Derivet.
