Cuban artist and dissident exiled from country after 5 years in prison arrives in US

MIAMI (AP) — A famous Cuban dissident artist and musician, Luis Manuel Otero Alcántara, arrived in Miami on Saturday after being released from a five-year prison sentence on the condition that he leave his country.

Alcántara, 38, was greeted at the airport by a crowd that was cheering, singing and holding their phones high in the air to get a photo of him. They draped him in a Cuban flag, printed with the words “Patria y Vida” — “Homeland and Life” — the title of a song he shared a Grammy for that became an anthem for Cuba’s political opposition against repression.

The United States granted him parole into the country earlier this week, according to a social media page maintained by his friends and supporters. They wrote that he accepted exile as the only way to escape persecution and continue his art and activism…

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