Cuba arrests dissident artist for celebrating Fidel's death

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MIAMI (Reuters) - Cuban police arrested dissident artist Danilo "El Sexto" Maldonado, once a prisoner of conscience by Amnesty International, after he made a video celebrating the death of Fidel Castro, a dissident group said on Monday, Human rights and the artist's girlfriend.

Fidel died on Friday at the age of 90, a decade after he retired due to poor health and passed power to his brother, current President Raul Castro.

Maldonado released on social networks on Saturday a video in which he criticizes Fidel and calls him a "mare," a derogatory Cuban term.

Such a video can be an offense of "disrespect." Maldonado, 33, was arrested on charges of painting the names "Fidel" and "Raúl" on two pigs.

The recent arrest was reported by Maldonado's American girlfriend, Alexandra Martinez, who said she had talked to him in prison, and by the dissident Cuban Commission on Human Rights and National Reconciliation, who said that Maldonado's mother had talked about the arrest in a Radio station in South Florida.

Cuban officials have not confirmed whether Maldonado was in custody, said Kimberley Motley, a lawyer contacted by the Human Rights Foundation to handle the case. Cuba does not announce prisons and calls dissidents of mercenaries paid by the United States.

Maldonado has already used performance and graffiti to criticize the Cuban government. After being arrested in December 2014, he spent 10 months in jail and was released after a statement from Amnesty International that he was considered the only prisoner of conscience in Cuba.

(Reporting by Nicole Martinez)