I wanted to take this opportunity during which I know we have man new and first-time readers to talk about someone who is certain to be forgotten by the mainstream media, Dr. Oscar Elias Biscet.
Dr. Biscet is an Afro-Cuban physician and a political prisoner who has opposed the regime for its violations of Human rights. Dr. Biscet is currently rotting away in a prison because he had the audacity to speak out against the Cuban government both personally and through his Lawton Foundation for Human Rights. Recently, Cuba made news because they agreed to free a handful of political prisoners into exile. But Dr. Biscet does not want to be an exile. He wants to be a Cuban and enjoy the freedoms that Cubans, like all people, deserve. You know, inalienable rights.
This was the WSJ’s Mary Anastasia O’Grady on Biscet back in November.
A Cuban Hero
Cuban physician Oscar Elías Biscet and seven others will be awarded the presidential medal of freedom by George W. Bush in a White House ceremony today. But Dr. Biscet will not be there to accept his honor in person. Today, like most days for the better part of the past eight years, he is locked away in a dungeon on Fidel Castro’s island paradise.
Tales of totalitarian gulags may strike some readers as ancient history, something that happened during Europe’s 20th-century experiments in fascism, communism and Nazism. Yet in Cuba, the gulag and its suffering have not ended. Dr. Biscet’s medal serves to remind us of this fact. By raising the profile of his struggle for a free Cuba, the award also highlights what Castro’s regime fears most. It is not the guns and tanks of some imperial invader, but rather the faith, courage and nonconformity of the country’s own people.
Dr. Biscet says that the regime has offered to let him go if he agrees to leave Cuba. He will not. In an April letter to his wife Elsa, he explained why: “My suffering is much, much less since I began to seek after my dream of being free, but not only for me personally. If I thought only of myself, you know that I would have been free a long time ago, and I would have been rid of these unsettling anxieties. But I want to see my friend’s son, my adversary’s son, or any citizen laughing happily from the satisfaction in their lives and enjoying a wealth of freedom because it is the only way human talent reaches its maximum splendor.”
When the newspaper columns begin to appear suggesting that the U.S. MUST change it’s policy toward Cuba, remember to ask the authors: What about Biscet?
More info here and here.
Below is a video of Biscet’s wife, Elsa Morejon, demonstrating what her husband’s cell looks like. This replica was assembled on the grounds of the U.S. Interest Section (our de facto embassy) in Cuba. The video was also shot there.
And yet somehow, it’s bloodthirsty terrorists at Guatanamo Bay that are being “so horribly mistreated.”