September 23, 2026 - 6:00 pm
Room 9205
The Graduate Center, CUNY
“Youth, Power, and Social Media in Cuba: Patterns of State Repression against Young People’s Rights to Freedom of Association and Peaceful Assembly” presents new research examining how the Cuban State represses and criminalizes young people who exercise their rights to freedom of expression, peaceful assembly, and association.
Based on interviews with persecuted young Cubans and youth collectives, the report documents a cycle of repression that moves from restrictions on independent association to digital surveillance, criminal prosecution, imprisonment, and forced exile.
Five years after the July 11, 2021 protests, this event brings the voices and experiences of a new generation of Cubans before the international community and examine the documented practices through the framework of international human rights law.
Luis Manuel Otero Alcántara is a Cuban visual and performance artist, human rights defender, and co-founder of the San Isidro Movement (Movimiento San Isidro), an artist-led initiative that emerged in response to state censorship and restrictions on artistic freedom in Cuba. His work explores the intersections of art, political power, national identity, and individual freedom, and he became one of the most internationally recognized figures of Cuba’s independent artistic and civic movement. His performances and activism subjected him to repeated arrests, surveillance, and harassment by Cuban authorities; he was detained on July 11, 2021 while attempting to join nationwide protests, and in 2022 was sentenced to five years in prison on charges including contempt, public disorder, and offenses involving national symbols, drawing sustained international condemnation and calls for his release. After serving five years in prison, Otero Alcántara was released in July 2026 and compelled to leave Cuba, arriving in Miami, where he is now based and has resumed his artistic and civic work; drawings made during his imprisonment were recently presented at Miami’s Freedom Tower in the exhibition “Luis Manuel Otero Alcántara: nos encontramos.” Through both his artistic practice and public advocacy, he continues to defend freedom of expression, artistic independence, and fundamental rights in Cuba.
Gina Romero is a Colombian human rights expert and the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the Rights to Freedom of Peaceful Assembly and of Association, a mandate she assumed in May 2024, through which she works globally to promote and protect the rights of individuals to organize collectively and assemble peacefully. For more than two decades, she has worked at the intersection of human rights, democracy, civic space, governance, and civic and political participation, with particular attention to marginalized communities, women, and young people, and her expertise also spans dialogue and mediation, democratic institution-building, and the development of international civil society networks. Prior to her appointment as Special Rapporteur, Romero led numerous initiatives to strengthen democracy and the rule of law, co-founding and serving for nearly a decade as Executive Director of the Latin American and Caribbean Network for Democracy (REDLAD), engaging governments, civil society, academic institutions, and the private sector across the Americas and dozens of countries in Europe, Africa, and Asia. As Special Rapporteur, she has focused international attention on the contraction of civic space, restrictions on civil society and political participation, the protection of peaceful protest, and emerging threats to freedom of association and assembly, including recent UN work examining the impact of the 2023-2025 global electoral cycle on these freedoms and, in 2026, the chilling effects of digital surveillance on civic participation.
Carolina Barrero is a Cuban human rights defender, pro-democracy leader, and internationally recognized advocate for fundamental freedoms and democratic change in Cuba. She is President and Executive Director of Ciudadanía y Libertad (Center for the Promotion of Human Rights Guy Pérez Cisneros), a civil society organization dedicated to strengthening independent civic leadership, defending fundamental rights, and advancing the conditions for a peaceful and democratic future in Cuba. Barrero emerged as a prominent figure in Cuba’s contemporary civic movement through 27N, the coalition of activists, intellectuals, journalists, and cultural figures that mobilized in defense of freedom of expression, and became an outspoken advocate for political prisoners and for Cubans’ right to participate freely in political and civic life. Her activism led to sustained repression by Cuban authorities, including arbitrary detentions, interrogations, surveillance, and house arrest, and in February 2022 she was forced into exile after sustained pressure from state security. Since then, she has built an increasingly international role, engaging governments, legislators, diplomats, and civil society leaders across Europe and the Americas on political prisoners, freedom of association and assembly, democratic participation, transnational repression, and international accountability for human rights violations in Cuba. In 2024, Barrero was named a Sakharov Fellow of the European Parliament in recognition of her work in defense of human rights and democratic freedoms, and through Ciudadanía y Libertad she continues working to strengthen the capacity and international representation of independent Cuban civil society.
Opening Remarks: Ted A. Henken, The Graduate Center/ Baruch College, CUNY
Moderator: Carolina Barrero, Ciudadanía y Libertad
Co-Organizer: Ciudadanía y Libertad
Co-sponsored by Civil Rights Defenders and Consorcio Justicia
TO REGISTER send email to bildner@gc.cuny.edu
