After an International Outcry, Cuban Performance Artist Luis Manuel Otero Alcantara Has Been Released From Jail

After spending nearly two weeks in jail, Cuban performance
artist Luis Manuel Otero Alcantara has been released from following
an outcry from artists and international rights groups.

Otero Alcántara, who is 32, was
arrested outside his home in Havana on March 1, on his way to join
an LGTBIQ rally. According to his partner, fellow activist Claudia
Genluie, he spent 13 days in “preventive prison” awaiting trial for
various charges, including the “desecration of patriotic
symbols”—an allegation relating to his 2019 performance
#LaBanderaEsDeTodos, which saw the artist wearing the Cuban flag
for a month straight.  

The artist was also charged with
alleged property damage for
an incident that occurred last year after he was arrested at an
anti-censorship protest. Otero Alcántara says he kicked the inside
of a police car while police assaulted Genluie for refusing to turn
over her phone.

Still, the fight isn’t over for
the artist. The state has not dropped the charges and his trial
date is pending. If convicted, he could face between two and five
years in prison.

“Otero Alcántara’s release prior
to trial is entirely just,” says artist and activist Coco Fusco,
who has been vocal in her support for the artist. “The state
released him to stop the escalating protests and the international
outcry.” 

Indeed, the artist’s arrest
incited a furor among artists both in Cuba and worldwide, many of
whom speculated that the charges were trumped up to punish him for
speaking out against the state. More than 3,300 people signed
a petition started by
Fusco that demands Otero
Alcántara’s release. The level of support the petition has received
is a sign to Fusco “that Cubans inside the country are losing their
fear of speaking out.”

“The situation is embarrassing
for the Cuban government,” Fusco says. “Otero Alcántara’s has
received support from a broad spectrum of cultural figures inside
Cuba—that is a very rare example of solidarity and public
expression of dissent from the state’s position.”

Otero Alcántara has been
detained by authorities more than 20 times in the last three years.
Roughly half of those arrests came in the past year, as Cuban
authorities have cracked down on their enforcement of
Decree 349, a law passed in 2018
that prevents artists from showing their work without approval by
the ministry of culture.

Last week, Amnesty
International publicly called for
Otero Alcantara’s release, referring to him as a “prisoner of conscience.”

“It is absolutely shameful that
the Cuban administration continues to stifle any voices that are
not aligned with the official position,” said Erika Guevara-Rosas,
director of the Americas at Amnesty International, in a
statement. 

“They couldn’t take from me my
rights or my liberty,” said Otero Alcantara in an Instagram video
that he posted upon his release last Friday. The artist thanked the thousands of people
who spoke out against his arrest online, before closing with a
promise: “We are going to keep producing art; it’s the biggest
responsibility of our lives. We will keep fighting for a free
Cuba.”

The post After an International Outcry, Cuban Performance
Artist Luis Manuel Otero Alcantara Has Been Released From Jail
appeared first on artnet News.