Cuban dissident artist arrives in US after five years in prison

By Maria Alejandra Cardona

MIAMI, July ‌18 (Reuters) - Cuban dissident ​artist Luis ​Manuel Otero Alcántara arrived in the United States on Saturday after completing a five-year prison sentence on the communist-run island.

Otero Alcántara, co-founder of Cuba's ‌opposition San Isidro Movement, was welcomed in Miami by a group ⁠of singing supporters and visited the National Shrine of Our Lady of Charity.

Speaking outside the church to journalists ‌and members of the Cuban ‌community, he thanked the U.S. and the European Union and reiterated calls for a change of government in Cuba.

"I believe the dictatorship has to end, and the ​Castro dynasty has to end, as well," Otero Alcántara said. "Because as long as there is a Castro in power, there will be corruption."

Responsibility for rebuilding the country ⁠lies with Cubans themselves, he said. "Cuba's future depends on us, the Cuban people," Otero Alcántara said.

Otero Alcántara, 38, was detained ​by Cuban authorities in 2021 amidst the largest anti-government protests seen in Cuba in decades. He was convicted of offenses including desecration ​of national symbols, contempt and public disorder, and ‌spent five years in the Guanajay prison near Havana.

U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced Otero Alcántara's arrival in a statement earlier without ⁠providing details of his whereabouts.

"The Cuban government's brutal crackdown against its own people five years ago is yet another reminder of the unique misery and evil that is innate to the communist ⁠system," Rubio said, urging the release of all political prisoners in Cuba.

"Otero Alcántara’s only 'crime' was refusing to ​stay silent and using his art to demand the basic freedoms everyday Cubans have been denied for almost seven decades."

A U.S. Embassy official in Havana on Friday said Otero Alcántara had been ‌granted humanitarian parole.

Cuban authorities had previously offered him the option of leaving the country in exchange for an early release, an alternative ‌Otero Alcántara repeatedly rejected.

The cases of Otero Alcántara and rapper Maykel Castillo, known as "Osorbo," who is ⁠serving an eight-year prison sentence, have ‌been a recurring source of ​diplomatic tension between Washington and Havana.

(Reporting by Maria Alejandra Cardona in Miami and Doina Chiacu in Washington; Editing by Sergio Non, Alistair Bell and ‌Lincoln Feast.)

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