The leader of the San Isidro Movement shares the recognition with two creators from Syria and Russia, who were imprisoned in their respective countries.
14ymedio, Madrid, 2 May 2025 — Luis Manuel Otero Alcántara is one of three recipients of the Vaclav Havel Prize for Creative Dissidence, which was announced Thursday. The artist, founder of the San Isidro Movement and a Cuban political prisoner, has been recognized for his leadership of this collective, which “emerged in 2018 to challenge censorship and demand greater freedoms in Cuba.”
The Human Rights Foundation and Oslo Freedom Forum, the organizations that award the prize, note in their statement that Otero Alcántara “gained international attention for his performance art and peaceful protests, including hunger strikes and symbolic acts of resistance.” They also note that his arrest occurred during the “historic protests in Cuba in 2021,” after which he was sentenced to five years in prison in a closed-door trial.
The organization also emphasizes that his imprisonment is considered arbitrary according to the opinion of the United Nations Working Group on this matter, and that the Cuban regime has been urged to release him immediately. Although not expressly stated, this is the same opinion held by independent organizations such as Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, which have named him a prisoner of conscience. Despite this, Otero Alcántara has one year remaining on his sentence, which he is serving in the maximum security prison in Guanajay.
A post published on the artist’s official social media profile thanked the Human Rights Foundation for the recognition, noting that “it not only honors his courage and commitment to freedom of expression, but also highlights the fight for human rights in Cuba.”
The Cuban artist shares the honor this year with Syrian Azza Abo Rebieh and Russian Sasha Skochilenko. The former, who currently resides in Beirut, has portrayed in drawings and prints her time in Bashar al-Assad’s prisons, where she has been held for protesting against the Damascus regime since 2012. The latter, an artist, musician, and poet, was arrested in 2022 for distributing leaflets against the war in Ukraine in a supermarket and sentenced to seven years in prison for enemy propaganda. In 2024, she was released in an exchange and lives in Cologne, Germany.
Otero Alcántara is the third Cuban to be honored with the Vaclav Havel Prize for Creative Dissidence, which was previously awarded to Danilo Maldonado, El Sexto, in 2015, and Berta Soler, on behalf of the Ladies in White, in 2013. The list also includes two Venezuelans, two Iranians, and two Syrians, among others.
The Human Rights Foundation, a nonprofit organization that promotes human rights worldwide, founded this award with the endorsement of Dagmar Havlová, widow of the late poet, playwright, and statesman Václav Havel, to honor those fighting against dictatorships. Among its most well-known winners are Chinese artist Ai Weiwei, the Russian group Pussy Riot, North Korean democracy activist Park Sang Hak, Burmese politician Aung San Suu Kyi, and Nicaraguan cartoonist Pedro X Molina.
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