Rapper Maykel Osorbo Disappears in State Security custody
The rapper and activist’s whereabouts are unknown, just like those of Luis Manuel Otero, the leader of the San Isidro Movement.
HAVANA TIMES – Rapper Maykel Castillo Osorbo was reportedly released from prison this Friday, but his whereabouts remain unknown, just three days after the Cuban regime carried out a similar operation involving artist Luis Manuel Otero Alcántara, whose location also remains undisclosed. They are both apparently in State Security custody.
“We have learned, through a supportive source, that Maykel Castillo was taken today from Kilo 8 prison in Pinar del Río, where he had been transferred in January of this year,” art historian Anamely Ramos, a member of the San Isidro Movement along with both political prisoners, reported on social media.
Ramos denounced what had happened: “They simply came to his cell, told him to gather all his belongings, and took him away. We don’t know where or why. If it was a prison transfer, his family should have been officially notified, but that didn’t happen—as never happens. Where is Maykel Osorbo?”
Ramos is the only person who has had telephone contact with Luis Manuel Otero this Friday. Speaking through a Cuban State Security phone, the MSI leader told her that he was “fine,” but that he did not know where he was.
In the same post where she revealed this information, Ramos explained that the humanitarian parole application allowing Otero to travel to the United States was still “being processed” and that the artist would remain apparently “in that unknown location until the matter is resolved.”
She added: “Luis’s friends are doing everything within our power. The Cuban regime wants him out. The regime has taken over our country and uses all of us to maintaing its grip on power.”
Everything points to the regime’s objective—having stepped up repression ahead of the anniversary of the July 11, 2021 protests—being a “double forced exile.” The fact that Osorbo, unlike Otero was not due to complete his nine-year prison sentence until 2030 only further confirms the arbitrariness with which the dictatorship operates.
Otero’s five-year sentence, imposed after he was arrested on July 11, 2021, before he could join the protests, officially expired on Thursday.
Osorbo, who was arrested at his home on May 18, 2021, is serving a nine-year sentence for contempt, assault, public disorder, and “defamation of institutions and organizations, heroes and martyrs.”
First published in Spanish by 14ymedio and translated and posted in English by Havana Times.