Luis Manuel Otero Alcantara is one of the leaders of the San Isidro opposition movement launched in 2018. Maykel Castillo, says Osorbo, is a rapper whose song “Patria Y Vida” became a protest hymn.
Le Monde and AFP
“They are innocent and should not spend a minute more in prison”, wrote on his Twitter account, the Cuban Opposition activist Anamely Ramos Gonzalez , in response to the requisitions pronounced against dissident artists Luis Manuel Otero Alcantara and Maykel Castillo, imprisoned for several months.
“A month about after the opening of the oral procedure, the demands of sentence against Maykel and Luis were unveiled. We are asking for ten years against Maykel and seven years against Luis,” said April 7, the Facebook account of Maykel Castillo, says Osorbo, one of two opponents. This 39-year-old rapper is the co-author of the controversial song Patria y Vida become a hymn of the protesters and considered controversial for its reference to the famous “the homeland or death”, launched by Fidel Castro.
Luis Manuel OTero Alcantara, 34, arrested on July 11, 2021 When thousands of Cubans sprang in the streets of the island in the Crees of “We are hungry” and “freedom”, is one of the leaders of the protest movement San Isidro launched in 2018 in response to a controversial official decree regulating the work of the artists. It has been appointed among the 100 personalities of 2021 by Time magazine, and prisoner of consciousness by Amnesty International.
Havana does not consider it as an artist but as an agent serving the United States who would try to destabilize the Cuban government. Justice reproaches him various offenses, including an incentive to commit an offense, an aggravated contempt, a public disorder, all before July 11, 2021.
“Once again, the Cuban dictatorship ignores all the voices,” has castigated, in his tweet, Anamely Ramos Gonzalez, prevented by the Cuban authorities back in his country in February, after a trip to Mexico.
“The people are tired”
Washington has not stopped asking Havana to release the two artists. Wednesday, the US Secretary of State for the Americas, Brian Nichols, Urged Twitter “Cuban leaders to provide immediate medical care to @lmoalcantara that remains seriously ill and held”.
On this social network, the US Embassy in Cuba noted that “Maykel Osorbo, Laureate of a Grammy Latino, croupit in a Cuban prison since May 2021 after months of harassment for his peaceful support at the freedom “. The rapper is imprisoned for resistance, contempt of justice and aggression for his participation on April 4, 2021 at a demonstration in Havana against police officers who came to stop him.
“The people are tired,” says the song Patria y Vida, exit at mid-February and which combines more than 10.8 million views on YouTube . The government has denounced a “campaign against Cuba”.