Luis Manuel Otero Alcántara, 38, a leading artist and co-founder of the San Isidro Movement, arrived in Miami after going into exile in the United States following a five-year prison sentence. He was arrested in 2021 during Cuba's largest anti-government protests in decades and spent five years in the maximum-security Guanajay prison near Havana. Cuban authorities held his whereabouts unclear in recent days while the US approved a parole request or humanitarian permission for his travel. Emerging from the Miami airport, Otero Alcántara was greeted by supporters who sang the Cuban national anthem as he made the L sign for "Libertad" and told journalists that "the dictatorship has to end, and the Castro dynasty has to end, as well." The Cuban government alleges the San Isidro Movement is funded by Washington and used to subvert the state, a charge the movement denies, and fellow SIM member Maykel Castillo known as Osorbo remains in prison serving an eight-year sentence. US Secretary of State Marco Rubio condemned Cuba's crackdown and framed Otero Alcántara's imprisonment as evidence of systemic repression, a point that has heightened diplomatic tensions between Washington and Havana amid recent US sanctions and other actions against the Cuban government.
