Luis Manuel Otero Alcántara is a Cuban activist and independent artist born in Cuba on December 2, 1987. Known for his performances that denounce government practices and policies, he is a leader and member of the San Isidro Movement. This movement, made up 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 recently made headlines following the hacking of the Facebook account of the San Isidro Movement (August 2020) and the posting 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 the structural decay it was facing and performed to draw 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. As a result of this action, Otero was detained.
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. This time, 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 the call for the Cuban's release after he had been imprisoned for over two weeks, facing the threat of 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 the King and Queen of Spain began their official visit to the Island and was arrested on the charge of "public disorder."
Alcántara has been the target of attacks on many occasions by the official Cuban press, a sector of artists who support the government, and by the president of the National Council of Plastic Arts, Norma Rodríguez Derivet.
