Luis Manuel Otero Alcántara is a Cuban independent activist and artist born in Cuba on December 2, 1987. Known for his performances that denounce government management and policies, he is the leader and member of the San Isidro Movement. This movement, consisting 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 due to the hacking of the Facebook account of the San Isidro Movement (August 2020) and the publication of intimate photos of the artist with the intent to tarnish his image, which has led to multiple displays of support from his followers.
In February 2020, Otero traveled around the city to highlight its crumbling infrastructure and staged a performance aimed at drawing attention to the collapses, specifically the tragic death of three girls after a balcony fell on them in the Jesús María neighborhood of Old Havana. Following this act, 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 U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for Western Hemisphere Affairs, Michael G. Kozak, and Amnesty International, among others) joined in the call for the release of the Cuban after being imprisoned for more than two weeks and facing the threat of a sentence of two to five years in prison for the alleged crime of property damage. Regarding these calls for release, Diaz Canel asserted that "Cuban artists must be within 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 he was detained on the charge of "public disorder."
Alcántara has often been the target of attacks by the Cuban state media, a group of artists who support the government, and by the president of the National Council of Fine Arts, Norma Rodríguez Derivet.
