US urges Cuba to free 700+ political prisoners after dissident artist’s release

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Saturday called on Cuba to immediately release more than 700 political prisoners, as prominent Cuban dissident artist Luis Manuel Otero Alcántara arrived in Miami after spending five years in prison.

In a statement confirming Otero Alcántara’s arrival in the United States, Rubio said: “We demand the immediate release of more than 700 political prisoners unjustly held by the regime.”

Activist Anamely Ramos, a friend of the artist, shared a video with AFP showing Otero Alcántara at the airport in Miami after his arrival. A post on a Facebook account managed by his friends said the artist plans to stage a performance in Miami later on Saturday.

Otero Alcántara, a self-taught performance artist, sculptor and painter, emerged as a leading figure in Cuba’s opposition movement in 2020 as one of the founders of the San Isidro Movement, a protest group involving artists and intellectuals.

He was detained in July 2021 while leaving his Havana home to join widespread anti-government demonstrations that marked one of the largest protest waves in Cuba in decades.

In 2022, a Cuban court sentenced him to five years in prison on charges including insulting national symbols, contempt and public disorder. Amnesty International had recognized him as a prisoner of conscience.

Rubio described Otero Alcántara’s activism as a “flame of hope,” saying the artist’s only “crime” was refusing to remain silent and using his art to demand basic freedoms denied to ordinary Cubans for seven decades.

“The international community must stop turning a blind eye to the Cuban regime’s human rights abuses and join us in demanding an end to its repressive practices,” Rubio said.

Otero Alcántara is considered one of the most prominent figures in Cuba’s emerging opposition movement. In 2024, he received Norway’s Rafto Prize for Human Rights for his “courageous opposition to authoritarianism through art.”

His release comes at a time of heightened tensions between Havana and Washington. Earlier this month, during a United Nations General Assembly debate on US sanctions against Cuba, US Ambassador Mike Waltz held up a photograph of Otero Alcántara to highlight what he described as the lack of freedom of expression on the island.

Human rights organizations estimate that between 700 and 1,000 political prisoners remain behind bars in Cuba.