Luis Manuel Otero Alcántara is a Cuban independent activist and artist born in Cuba on December 2, 1987. Known for his performances that denounce the government’s management and policies, he is a leader and member of the Movimiento San Isidro. This movement, formed by 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 arrests by the Cuban police and State Security. He has recently made headlines due to the hacking of the San Isidro Movement's Facebook account (August 2020) and the release of intimate photos of the artist with the intent to tarnish his image, which has resulted in multiple displays of support from his followers.
In February 2020, Otero traveled around the city to draw attention to its structural deterioration and staged a performance aimed at highlighting the tragic deaths of three girls who were killed when a balcony collapsed on them in the Jesús María neighborhood of Old Havana. As a result of this action, Otero was detained.
In March of that same year, he was detained 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 movie 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, with the threat of receiving a sentence of two to five years in prison for the alleged crime of damage to property. Regarding these 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 King and Queen of Spain began their official visit to the Island, and he was arrested on the charge of "public disorder."
Alcántara has been targeted on many occasions by the Cuban state media, a sector of artists who support the government, and by the president of the National Council of Plastic Arts, Norma Rodríguez Derivet.
