Cuban dissident Luis Manuel Otero Alcántara goes into exile in US - BBC News

He was arrested in 2021 during Cuba's largest anti-government protests in decades and spent five years ⁠in prison.

Image source, AFP via Getty ImagesImage caption, Luis Manuel Otero Alcántara speaks to journalists at Miami airport

One of Cuba's most prominent dissidents has gone into exile in the US, after leaving Cuba where he had served a five-year prison sentence.

Luis Manuel Otero Alcántara, 38, is the leader of the San Isidro Movement (SIM), a group of artists, journalists and intellectuals who have campaigned for freedom of speech and democracy in the communist country.

He was arrested in 2021 during Cuba's largest anti-government protests in decades and spent five years ⁠in the maximum-security Guanajay prison near Havana.

His whereabouts have been unclear in recent days as Cuban authorities held him in an unknown location while the US approved a parole request.