Cuban regime frees Luis Manuel Otero Alcántara, the dissident who was isolated in a Havana hospital for four weeks

Cuban dissident artist Luis Manuel Otero Alcantara, 33, admitted to hospital since May 2 after eight days of hunger strike, He was released on Monday, the Havana Provincial Directorate of Health reported.

The medical team of Calixto García General University Hospital “decided to release him from the hospital” on Monday after treatment allowed the “full recoveryFrom the dissident described by Amnesty International as “Prisoner of conscience”. During these weeks, Cuban dissidents denounced that the activist was “in a state of virtual removal ” because he had no communication with the outside.

Before being arbitrarily admitted to hospital, Otero Alcántara was under constant siege from his home by the regime’s security forces.

Last week, a group of writers, painters, curators, educators and photographers, among other representatives of culture, published an open letter to Cuban dictator, Miguel Díaz-Canel, condemning the arrest of the artist and demanding his “immediate and unconditional” freedom.

Otero Alcántara, leader of Movimiento San Isidro, a group in favor of freedom of expression in Cuba, was hospitalized against his will on May 2 after an eight-day hunger strike that began after the confiscation of his works of ‘art.

In an open letter published in the magazine The New York ReviewThe artists also report to the Cuban president that friends of Otero Alcántara who tried to visit him have been arrested. They also claim that it caused them “a big concern“That the artist looks physically damaged, according to a video that authorities recently released.

They recall in the letter, that it has among its signatories the famous painter of Ethiopian origin Julie Mehretu and the British artist, writer, director, screenwriter and art curator of Ghanaian origin John Akomfrah, who before being hospitalized Otero Alcántara faced “harassment and intimidation of state security agents for their work as artists and human rights defenders ”.

They also denounce that Otero Alcántara has been arrested more than 50 times since 2019 for his actions and his defense of the civil rights of Cubans.

“He has been the target of constant harassment, prolonged house arrest, disrupted telecommunications and smear campaigns by Cuban state media,” says the group, as well as Dominican writer Junot Díaz, British artist and filmmaker Isaac Julien and interdisciplinary artist, curator and writer of Cuban origin living in New York City Coco Fusco.

They add that the artist is detained “Only to peacefully express his ideas through his art and for his non-violent defense of human rights”. “We urge you to guarantee his immediate and unconditional release.”, affirm in the letter also signed by the Haitian-American writer Edwidge Danticat and the New York artist Juan Sánchez, among others, from a dozen countries.

In turn, the NGO Archivo Cuba warned of “strong indications” that Otero Alcántara was “drugged and possibly subjected to electroconvulsive therapy (ECT)” while admitted to a Havana hospital. .

The Miami-based NGO urged “governments of free countries” to demand “an independent medical assessment of Otero.” Also ask medical and psychiatric associations in democratic countries to investigate and report psychiatric abuse on the island.

Echoing its recent report on “Psychiatric Abuse in Revolutionary Cuba”, Cuba Archive alerted in a statement to this type of psychiatric abuse the 33-year-old artist, declared by Amnesty International to be a “prisoner of conscience “.

With information from EFE

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