Luis Manuel Otero Alcántara, 38, the leader of Cuba's San Isidro Movement, arrived in Miami after being granted a US parole to go into exile following a five-year prison term. He was arrested in 2021 during Cuba's largest anti-government protests in decades and served his sentence at the maximum-security Guanajay prison near Havana. Emerging from the Miami airport, supporters sang the Cuban national anthem as he made the 'L' gesture for "Libertad" and told journalists "the dictatorship has to end, and the Castro dynasty has to end, as well." Cuban authorities accuse the San Isidro Movement of being funded by Washington, a claim the movement denies, and the cases of Otero Alcántara and fellow SIM member Maykel Castillo, known as "Osorbo," who is serving an eight-year sentence, have been a recurring source of diplomatic tension between Washington and Havana. US Senator Marco Rubio called Cuba's 2021 crackdown "brutal" and said Otero Alcántara's only wrongdoing was using art to demand basic freedoms. Recent months have seen those tensions rise amid US sanctions and an oil blockade that US officials say have contributed to fuel shortages and declines in tourism on the island.
