Garrote Vil Performance by Luis Manuel Otero

In the prelude to the start of the Communist Party Congress and as the event kicked off, repression of dissenting voices has escalated across Cuba. For the past two weeks, Luis Manuel’s home and main headquarters of the San Isidro Dissident Artist Movement has been besieged by State Security police. In Santiago de Cuba, the Patriotic Union of Cuba (UNPACU) was also subjected to 23 days of police besiege which ended only partially after José Daniel Ferrer García and a group of activists led a 22 day hunger strike in protest. Other human rights activists such as Bertha Soler leader of the Ladies in White have also been targeted for forced house arrests and short term arbitrary arrests.

To protest against these arbitrary acts, Luis Manuel Otero Alcántara, the main coordinator of the San Isidro Movement initiated an artistic performance to call world attention to the vulnerability in which human rights defenders live in Cuba. With his front door wide opened, Luis Manuel invited the police to walk in and twist the Garrote Vil stick to end is execution. As he was about to start his performance, it was reported that 14 police patrol cars surrounded his streets along with numerous State Security agents. By late last night, the San Isidro Movement reported the arbitrary arrest of Otero and the artist known as Afrik Reyna.