The Cuban regime expelled Luis Manuel Otero Alcantara, a dissident who spent four weeks isolated in a hospital in Havana.

Cuban dissident artist Luis Manuel Otero Alcantara, 33, was hospitalized since May 2 after that Eight days on hunger strikeAnd the The Havana Health Department reported that he was discharged from hospital on Monday.

The medical team for Calixto Garcia University General Hospital Decided to be discharged from the hospital on Monday after care allowedA comprehensive recoveryThe opposition described by Amnesty International as “Prisoner of conscience”. During these weeks, Cuban dissidents denounced that the activistPractically hijacked Because there is no contact with the outside.

Before entering hospital arbitrarily, Otero Alcantara was under a constant siege of his home by the regime’s security forces.

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

Otero Alcantara, the leader of Movimiento San Isidro, a pro-freedom of expression group in Cuba, was hospitalized on May 2 against his will after eight days of a hunger strike that began after his artwork was confiscated.

In an open letter published in the magazine The New York ReviewArtists also point to the Cuban president’s arrest of Otero Alcantara’s friends who tried to visit him. And they also assert that he caused them. ”A major concernThat the artist appears physically degraded, according to a video released by the authorities recently.

They recall in the letter that among the signatories was the famous painter of Ethiopian origin Julie Mihreto, the British artist, writer, film director, screenwriter and art coordinator of Ghanaian origin John Akumvra, who encountered Otero Alcantara before entering the hospital.Harassment and intimidation of state security agents for their work as artists and human rights defenders. “

They also owe that Otero Alcantara He was arrested more than 50 times Since 2019 for his actions and defense of the civil rights of Cubans.

“It has been the target of constant harassment, lengthy house arrest, intermittent communications campaigns and defamation by the Cuban state media.” The group, as well as Dominican writer Junot Diaz, British artist and director Isaac Julian and multidisciplinary artist, curator and writer of Cuban origin living in New York, emphasizes Coco Fusco.

And they add that the artist is detained “Only for the peaceful expression of his thoughts through his art and non-violent defense of human rights”. We urge you to ensure his immediate and unconditional release. “, Confirmed in the letter also signed by Haitian-American writer Edwidge Danticat and New York visual artist Juan Sanchez, among others, of twelve countries.

In turn, the non-governmental organization Archivo Cuba warned of “strong indications” that Otero Alcántara was “drugged and possibly undergoing electroconvulsive therapy (ECT)” while being transferred to a hospital in Havana.

The Miami-based NGO urged “governments of free nations” to demand “an independent medical evaluation for Otero.” Also, ask medical and psychological societies in democratic countries to investigate and report psychological abuse on the island.

Echoing its recent report on “the abuse of psychiatry in revolutionary Cuba”, the Cuban Archive warned in a statement about this kind of psychological abuse by the 33-year-old artist, which Amnesty International has declared a “prisoner of conscience”.

With information from EFE

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