A striking image is circulating on social media in Cuba: a dissident pumping his fist in the air, handcuffs dangling from one wrist, after friends and neighbors helped him evade arrest by police in Havana.

The image is a screenshot from a video showing rapper Maykel Castillo celebrating his escape, surrounded by other dissidents and residents of Havana's rundown San Isidro neighborhood on April 4. Some join him singing an anti-government song and insulting President Miguel Diaz-Canel.

Castillo said by phone from his home that the arrest attempt was another in a string of arbitrary detentions to intimidate him and others in the dissident artists collective, the Havana-based San Isidro Movement (MSI).