Overview
- Otero Alcántara arrived in Miami on Saturday after accepting U.S. humanitarian parole, and supporters greeted him at the airport waving Cuban flags.
- He says he was expelled from Cuba, cannot return home and has been cut off from seeing his son, a consequence he described as a heavy personal cost.
- Rights groups and family had raised alarms when state security agents removed him from Guanajay Prison days before his five-year sentence expired, prompting habeas corpus petitions and UN inquiries.
- Supporters say the U.S. reviewed and approved humanitarian parole to allow his travel, and U.S. officials publicly welcomed his arrival while urging Havana to free other detainees.
- Otero Alcántara is a founding figure of the San Isidro Movement who was convicted in 2022 on charges tied to dissent, and advocates warn many artists and more than 700 political prisoners remain behind bars.