- * Information from Rialta
The group of 14 people who had barricaded themselves at the Damas and San Isidro headquarters were 9 of whom were arbitrarily detained in operations organized by State Security (DSE) with the assistance of the National Revolutionary Police (PNR) between November 12 and 15. The purpose of these operations was to prevent them from meeting and peacefully protesting for their unjustly convicted comrade. Five members of the group had previously been arrested three or four times, almost daily, detained for more than 117 hours, and in most cases transferred to police stations in outlying municipalities far from the city center and their homes.
Below, we share a brief biographical profile of the strikers who, since November 18, have been on hunger strike, and some also on thirst strike, at Damas 955, Old Havana, demanding the release of rapper Denis Solís, unjustly imprisoned.
Luis Manuel Otero Alcántara He is 32 years old. He is a self-taught artist. He has exhibited at a mainstream art center like the Pompidou Centre. His poetics, shaped by the social stratum (poor and racialized) to which he belongs, have the power to challenge many of the notions traditionally used to judge art in Cuba by the most visible institutions: galleries, critics, curators, and even academically trained artists. Luis Manuel Otero has an internationally acclaimed artistic career.
However, in Cuba, he is persecuted for his political ideas, which are also his artistic ideas. He has been arbitrarily detained more than 20 times this year alone, but he has been harassed for years. State officials have attempted to bring arbitrary legal cases against him, which violate international law. In March 2020, he was imprisoned awaiting trial. The cause for his release mobilized artists, activists, journalists, and independent media outlets on the island. At that time, they wanted to try him for “insulting national symbols” and other “crimes” after a performance that used the Cuban flag. Luis Manuel Otero began a hunger and thirst strike on November 18 at 2:50 p.m. Cuban time, in protest against the imprisonment of a rapper and friend who was sentenced to eight months in prison, and following a series of peaceful protests, repressed by the state apparatus, that sought to demand justice for the detainee.
On the 25th, due to advanced physical deterioration, he ended his thirst strike, but continued his hunger strike. After the raid on November 26th, the authorities remained at the MSI headquarters, Otero Alcántara's home, and conducted an illegal search without a warrant or the presence of Luis Manuel as the owner.
Otero Alcántara remained in police custody and was taken to the home of poet Katherine Bisquet, despite the activist's refusal to go anywhere other than his own house. Katherine Bisquet confirmed in an audio recording that she was in the basement of her house with Otero Alcántara. He was detained and driven around the city for a time in a police patrol car until he was admitted, against his will, on November 27, to the Manuel Fajardo University Clinical Surgical Hospital in Havana, where he remained on hunger strike until November 29.
It was learned through the family that he was hospitalized under strict surveillance and remains in isolation. Enix Berrio, the artist's uncle, told the press that only his mother and sister, his closest family, are allowed to visit him. He was permitted a visit and found him isolated in a small room, accompanied by two State Security agents, who allowed him to speak with his nephew for only ten minutes, "without discussing counterrevolutionary topics," as they were ordered.
The officers were present throughout the entire conversation. According to his statement, he underwent several medical examinations due to his delicate health upon arrival at the hospital. He reported that he ended his hunger strike and began consuming liquids. He also mentioned that he is being given medication gradually, but the specific medication is unknown. Luis Manuel's wish is to leave the hospital as soon as possible and return to his home and the headquarters of the San Isidro Movement, which has been raided by State Security. Luis Manuel's birthday is December 2nd. The MSI headquarters remains closed.
Maykel Castillo Pérez (Maykel Osorbo) He is a rapper and political activist. He began his career as a rap vocalist and songwriter in 2000. In 2013, the Puños Arriba festival nominated his song “Vamos echando” from his album Sin pelos en la lengua in the Social Issues category. The following year he recorded his second album, The toughest. In 2018, during a concert at La Madriguera—a government-run venue—he spoke out against Decree 349, which seeks to criminalize independent art on the island. Days later, he was imprisoned and sentenced to more than a year in prison on the alleged charge of “contempt.” Since then, his activism in defense of civil rights has not ceased, and he has been the victim of attacks, harassment, arbitrary arrests, and civil and criminal sanctions without legal basis. In late 2019, he released his latest album, Enemy System, featuring more than a dozen tracks with clear messages of protest. Alongside some of the leading figures in Cuban hip hop, he has collaborated on singles such as “Manifiesto” and “Estamos conectados” (We Are Connected), one of the slogans of the San Isidro Movement, of which he is a member. His actions to raise public awareness of the lack of freedoms and civil rights also include performance art, some of which has had a significant impact, such as wearing the uniform of inmates in the Cuban prison system or sewing his lips shut with thread in protest against freedom of expression. He began a hunger and thirst strike on November 18 at 2:50 p.m. Cuban time, demanding the release of his friend and fellow activist Denis Solís. On November 24, he ended his hunger strike; he remained without food until November 30, when he issued a public statement announcing his decision to end the strike. He remains under house arrest, confined to his home under police surveillance, unable to leave or communicate with his friends. Six members of the MSI—Iris Ruiz, Katherine Bisquet, Claudia Genlui, Michel Matos, Yasser Castellanos, and Amaury Pacheco—were finally able to visit him on the night of November 28, while he was still on hunger strike and in very delicate condition. Upon leaving his home around 11:20 p.m., the group was approached by State Security agents and police officers, who intended to arrest them for possible Covid-19 infection. They were released with the warning that they must remain isolated in their homes for three days, awaiting the arrival of personnel who would administer PCR tests. According to statements from the other individuals arrested on November 26 following the raid on the MSI headquarters, with the exception of journalist Carlos Manuel Alvarez, none of them underwent the corresponding medical examinations to rule out Covid-19 infection. Maykel resides in Old Havana, is married, and is the father of a daughter.
Guantanamera Iliana Hernández She was born on July 9, 1973. She currently works as a reporter for the news site CiberCuba. Her live reports on daily life in Cuba are very popular. Iliana's life has been full of adventures and diverse jobs. As a child, she played several sports, and in her youth, she began a professional cycling career that was cut short by an accident. She also worked as a model, dancer, and coconut vendor on the beaches east of Havana. Thanks to the help of some friends, and after two failed attempts to escape Cuba, she managed to emigrate legally to Spain in 1996. She lived for a few years in Valladolid, where she studied dental prosthetics and community management, and worked as a stunt double for leading actresses in television series and films. In 2015, she participated in the Marathon des Sables, a demanding endurance sporting event that consists of crossing more than 240 kilometers through the Sahara Desert over seven days. Iliana documented this experience on her blog, Guantanamera en des Sables. A year later, after more than two decades away from the island, the then-activist with the opposition group Somos+ decided to return. Upon her return, she founded Lente Cubano, an audiovisual program broadcast through the Paquete Semanal (Weekly Package), which reported on the island's reality through culture, citizen denunciation, promotion of private businesses, and the dissemination of artists. In recent years, Iliana's life has been marked by constant harassment from State Security: arrests, anonymous death threats, confiscation of her personal belongings, and attempts to fabricate legal cases against her. Even so, Iliana continues her work as a reporter from Havana. At the headquarters of the San Isidro Movement, Iliana Hernández began a hunger strike on November 18. She ended the strike on November 26, after a raid and her arrest, when she was taken to her home.
Katherine Bisquet She is a young poet and storyteller. She was born in the province of Cienfuegos on December 10, Human Rights Day, in 1992. From the center of the country, where she lived close to the southern coast and the sea, in the Nuclear City of Cienfuegos, she moved to Havana, where she graduated with a degree in Literature. She published in 2014. Something's wrong here., a volume of poems, and has written articles on diverse topics for independent media such as Diario de Cuba, El Estornudo and Rialta.
She is one of the founders of Cuban Cinema in Quarantine, a project dedicated to the preservation, promotion, and research of Cuban cinema. She has played an active role in promoting initiatives that seek to dismantle the established norms of the country's restrictive cultural policies. In 2018, she was one of the organizers of the #00 Havana Biennial, an alternative to the official Biennial organized by Cuban cultural institutions.
Katherine Bisquet is also an activist. Since early 2019, she has experienced police surveillance, evictions, and arrests for exercising her right to freedom of expression in a country that criminalizes this right. She has been part of the campaign, within the independent artistic community, against Decree 349, which seeks to regulate artists not affiliated with the Ministry of Culture. On November 21, Katherine, holed up in San Isidro, joined a hunger strike in solidarity with her friends. She ended it on November 26, after being arrested during a raid and taken to her home.
On November 27, he participated in the demonstrations outside the Ministry of Culture, where he read a series of demands made by the independent artistic community and met with the deputy minister, representing the MSI, as part of a group of 30 artists, democratically selected to represent the more than 300 people gathered there.
Anamely Ramos González She is an art curator, critic, researcher, and professor. Born in Camagüey, in central Cuba, in 1985, she moved to Havana and graduated with a degree in Art History from the University of Havana. She also earned a Master's degree in Cuban Cultural Processes from the University of the Arts (ISA), where she taught for over twelve years. She recently began her first semester in the Doctoral Program in Anthropology at the Ibero-American University of Mexico. In addition, she coordinates the Loyola Forum project, which focuses on fostering social debate around current Cuban issues.
Since the San Isidro Movement (MSI) emerged in 2018 in response to Decree 349, which criminalizes art created in the country without association with the Ministry of Culture, Anamely Ramos began to professionally connect with members of this group, especially through her specialized criticism of the performances conceived by Luis Manuel Otero Alcántara, the MSI's founder. Since then, surveillance of her by the island's political police has increased. She has also written about the rapper and artivist Maykel Castillo, another of the group's most visible members. Anamely has a son who lives in Buenos Aires.
Her son emigrated to Argentina with his father, seeking a life where he could exercise his right to free speech and thought. She has chosen to remain in Cuba and defend the sovereignty that belongs to her as an individual and a Cuban citizen. She has decided to exercise her political will, despite having been beaten, interrogated, and detained by the Cuban police on several occasions, almost always for going to police stations to demand information about friends imprisoned or kidnapped by the authorities. She joined her friends in a hunger strike on November 25th at Damas 955, headquarters of the San Isidro Movement in Old Havana, in solidarity with the voices the Cuban government tries to silence.
Ramos González was arrested again at approximately 11:30 p.m. on November 27th, when she recounted the events on her social media accounts and stated her intention to leave her home to retrieve her belongings, which had been left at the headquarters occupied by security forces. She was stopped by an agent, and then two female soldiers escorted her to a patrol car. She ended her hunger strike that same night, after more than 12 hours of arbitrary detention, when State Security finally took her to Omara's house.
Like Luis Manuel Alcántara, who was also arrested that same night for refusing to go anywhere other than his home, the MSI headquarters, Ana was kept in a patrol car, driven around the city until they stopped in a park near the 5th Avenue tunnel. There, she was kept locked inside the patrol car for several hours. She only drank water during that time. When she ended her hunger strike, she had been on it for approximately 55 hours. She refuses to go home and remains at the home of Omara Ruiz Urquiola, where she is also under police surveillance day and night, and they are not allowed to leave the house. On November 28, Ana was able to visit Maykel Castillo with the help of a diplomat from the U.S. Embassy in Havana. She reported that the young man was in very delicate health and that he was being prevented from receiving medical assistance because he was under police guard.
Esteban L. Rodríguez López He is a reporter for the independent digital media outlet ADN Cuba and a political activist. His demands for the freedom of political prisoners and his aid efforts in the poorest communities and families on the island have resulted in arbitrary arrests, economic sanctions, harassment, and intimidation of him and his family by State Security. He was recently unjustly fined, under the protection of Decree-Law 370, for urging popular Cuban artists on social media to speak out about internet prices on the island and for posting a photo of himself wearing a face mask that graphically called for the release of political prisoners. He is the father of two daughters and the husband of Zuleidis Gómez Cepero. He resides in Old Havana. He began a hunger strike on November 18 at the headquarters of the San Isidro Movement, of which he is a member. He also maintained a thirst strike for more than 72 hours. Due to his health, he ended the hunger strike on November 26.
Oscar Antonio Casanella He is a biochemist and cancer researcher. Born on February 22, 1979, in Havana, he has been a professor of Immunology in the Biology and Biochemistry programs at the University of Havana, where he has taught seminars, laboratory sessions, practical classes, lectures, and more. His professional development studies include bioinformatics at the Swiss Institute of Bioinformatics (University of Lausanne). In 2015, he published the article “The Introduction of Bioinformatics at the National Institute of Oncology and Radiobiology” in the Cuban Journal of Higher Education.
During the impact of the pandemic in Cuba, he reported, communicated, and updated data and news, going beyond official sources, through his social media. For his opposition views and activism, he was expelled from both the National Institute of Oncology and Radiobiology (INOR) and the University of Havana. His Facebook profile, which features several photos with his son Pablo, states: “I would give my life for my family and friends. I am addicted to science, music, and politics. I never give up, and I believe there are very few impossible things in the world.” A victim of multiple arbitrary arrests and deliberate acts of violence, Casanella began a hunger strike on November 18th along with other members of the San Isidro Movement. On the 24th, after six days, he ended his strike due to “family pressure” and left the organization's headquarters.
Human rights activist, Osmani Pardo Guerra He stated that he does not directly belong to the San Isidro Movement, but that he joined the hunger strike on November 18 because “the right side of history cannot be alongside those who oppress and deceive the Cuban people.” He is self-employed and, although he has no children, he considers himself a father to his younger brother. On more than one occasion, he has expressed his unconditional love for his mother. In a statement published by Diario de Cuba, he declared: “I am here because I couldn't endure so much injustice anymore, so many things that are happening. My faith is Christian, and many injustices are being committed; they are tearing down churches, there is persecution of Christians. In general, the people are being crushed.” On November 23, he ended his hunger strike due to health problems after five days without food.
Osmel Adrián Rubio Santos He is an 18-year-old from Havana. His Facebook profile describes him as “gay, anti-communist, and a human rights activist.” In September of this year, he delivered a letter to the military committee of the Havana neighborhood of Cotorro declaring himself a conscientious objector and refusing to participate in mandatory military service. Then, in October, he was arrested twice by Cuban authorities. On one occasion, he was held in a cell for more than six hours. State Security agents threatened his mother after Esteban began a hunger strike at the headquarters of the San Isidro Movement on November 18. Rubio ended his hunger strike on November 21, as he suffers from asthma and high blood pressure, and experienced severe liver pain, in addition to an emotional hypertensive crisis. Despite this, he remained at the MSI headquarters supporting his comrades, while State Security agents pressured his mother to make him end the protest. The agents told his mother that he would be sanctioned under the "pre-criminal dangerousness" law or sent to Pinar del Río to do his military service. They also told her that he was with a group of murderers. Since his forced removal from the MSI headquarters, Rubio has been under constant surveillance at his home, which prevented him from leaving on the morning of Monday, November 30, to get the gas he needs for cooking. He was eventually allowed to go, but only accompanied by a State Security agent and an armed soldier. On the night of November 30, the authorities organized a protest in front of his house with the support of the CDR (Committees for the Defense of the Revolution). The human rights organization Cuban Prisoners Defenders denounced the harassment of Rubio in a statement.
The activist also went on hunger strike from the 18th to the 19th. Humberto Mena (Joker) and the artist Yasser CastellanoIn Mena's case, he also abstained from drinking water for 24 hours; he left the San Isidro Movement headquarters on the 19th for personal reasons. Castellanos, for his part, ended the hunger strike for health reasons after 24 hours; he was arrested during the raid and taken to his home.