Danilo Maldonado Machado

Danilo Maldonado Machado, known as El Sexto (''The Sixth''), born April 1, 1983, is a Cuban graffiti artist and human rights activist who has been arrested and imprisoned several times in Cuba. He was arrested in the United States in 2018 and charged with a felony, aggravated stalking, for repeatedly violating a restraining order filed by his ex-girlfriend Alexandra Martinez. He pled guilty in 2019 of aggravated stalking (which involves a credible threat to harm the victim) and was released from prison where he was held for one year without possibility of bail. He was also charged with threatening her with violence. He was set for deportation back to Cuba but was allowed to remain in the US as a result if the likelihood of persecution in Cuba. He is a convicted felon on two years of probation.

His graffiti art is a form of protest, criticizing the abuse of the Cuban people at the hands of the Castro regime, and he is “frequently detained by the police under any pretext.” He has been called “a graffiti artist who does not forgive the Cuban regime.” A report in April 2015 stated that he was, at that time, “the most persecuted of Cuban artists.”

Cuban writer and artist Orlando Luis Pardo Lazo has praised Maldonado as “a free artist widely hated for his courage and his genius.” Cuban dissident Rosa María Payá has said that although born under totalitarianism, Maldonado has somehow managed to be a free spirit and “the Cuban regime does not forgive that.” Provided by Wikipedia