Luis Manuel Otero Alcántara is a self-taught Cuban performance artist and dissident who leads the San Isidro Movement, using provocative public performances to openly challenge the Cuban government. Since 2018, he has faced dozens of arrests under Decree 349, which mandates state permission for artistic exhibitions, including a 2019 arrest for wearing the Cuban flag as a cape in defiance of a new law. His hunger strikes in 2020 and 2021 drew global media coverage, earning him recognition as a prisoner of conscience by Amnesty International and a spot on Time magazine's 100 most influential people list in 2021. In June 2022, he was sentenced to five years in a maximum-security prison after a closed trial, but was released early in July 2026 and flown to the United States under a special parole program. His case has drawn solidarity from prominent cultural figures like Junot Díaz and Edwidge Danticat, highlighting the ongoing tension between artistic freedom and state control in Cuba.