Artist Luis Manuel Otero Alcántara served three weeks of arbitrary detention by the Cuban regime in a Havana hospital

Artist and dissident Luis Manuel Otero Alcántara, leader of the San Isidro Movement (MSI), This Sunday, he was arbitrarily admitted and held incommunicado for three weeks in a Havana hospital by the Cuban dictatorship.

Otero, 33 and declared a “prisoner of conscience” by Amnesty International this week, was admitted by authorities to Calixto Garcia hospital on May 2, after spending a week on hunger and thirst strike for protest. for the constant harassment he suffered from the Castro regime, and for the destruction of many of his works.

Organizations, activists and friends of the opponent have been calling for his release for days, believing that he is being held against his will in hospital, where they denounce that a strong security device has been deployed and that their relatives are not allowed to access it.

Since his arrival at the hospital, state media have broadcast several videos of Otero Alcántara, all without a verifiable date and reportedly recorded by the medical team treating him. but that its environment attributes to the security of the state.

The latest of them was released this week and shows the artist in a hospital room, looking haggard and visibly thin, while eating on a platter with his hands. The images contrast with previous recordings, in which he was seen in apparent good health.

“This video shows Luis is bad, he is skinny and listless when he speaks, I was very alarmed to see him like that. I think they secretly recorded, the video is full of clippings. This is another of the manipulations of state security, but this time Luis’s image is relevant, you can see how much he’s going through there, ”the dancer told EFE agency. Chabelly Diaz, friend of Otero.

For his part, the adversary Ileana hernandez, close to the MSI, estimated that the activist “is in a state of submission” and added that he feared to be drugged. “His gestures and his way of speaking differ greatly from his normal state, he does not speak as if he is lucid”, Held.

Several entities and institutions have denounced the situation or expressed their concern, including Amnesty International – which called him a prisoner of conscience last Friday – Human Rights Watch, the United States government and the European Parliament.

“How is it possible that a patient in a hospital does not have visitation rights or telephone rights?”, the US Embassy in Havana asked on Twitter this week, which demanded “that Otero Alcántara and all Cubans be respected and treated with dignity.”

Amnesty International urged “President Miguel Díaz-Canel Bermúdez and other Cuban authorities to release him”, in a statement posted on the organization’s Internet website. The dissident artist “was deprived of his liberty only for speaking out peacefully and should be released immediately and unconditionallySaid IA director for the Americas Erika Guevara.

The NGO denounced that since he was taken to hospital, the artist is “under the supervision or control of state security agents and with very limited visits from their immediate family“. More, “doesn’t seem to have access to their phone or the outside world“He added.

For their part, six of the activists who demonstrated with dozens of others in Old Havana on April 30, shouting slogans against the Castro regime, continue to be arrested, a demonstration that has led to a dispute with the police.

According to sources close to them, Mary Karla Ares and Thais Franco were interned in El Guatao women’s prison; Esteban Rodríguez, Inti Soto and Ángel Cuza remain in the state security facilities of Villa Marista; and Yuisan Cancio is arrested in the province of Pinar del Río.

The April 30 incidents occurred as activists prepared to visit Otero Alcántara at his home., at that time still on hunger and thirst strike.

Cuban authorities, for their part, consider Otero Alcántara and other opponents to be “mercenaries” who work for the CIA or other American organizations to carry out subversive activities against the current socialist system.

With information from EFE

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