Source: BBC News [UK state media]
“One of Cuba’s most prominent dissidents has gone into exile in the US, after leaving Cuba where he had served a five-year prison sentence. Luis Manuel Otero Alcántara, 38, is the leader of the San Isidro Movement (SIM), a group of artists, journalists and intellectuals who have campaigned for freedom of speech and democracy in the communist country. 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. His whereabouts have been unclear in recent days as Cuban authorities held him in an unknown location while the US approved a parole request. Emerging from the airport in Miami, the 38-year-old was greeted by supporters who sang the Cuban national anthem as he held up his forefinger and thumb in the shape of the letter L to represent ‘Libertad – meaning freedom, a recognised anti-government symbol.” (07/19/26)