Biscet taken away by State Security shouting out "Long Live Human Rights"
In 1999, Dr. Oscar Elias Biscet Gonzalez led dozens of members of the opposition and thousands of Cubans on a 40-day prayer fast. Biscet organized teach-ins on non-violent resistance, civil disobedience, and the writings and thoughts of Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr. He succeeded in creating activists by educating them in the philosophy and practices of nonviolent resistance and leading them to challenge the regime, all of which terrified Fidel Castro.
Biscet during 1999 40 day fast
Dr. Oscar Elias Biscet Gonzalez, 43 years old, president of the Lawton Human Rights Foundation, has been detained over two dozen times in the past. In one instance, he served a three year sentence.
He was released on 10/31/2002 from a maximum security prison and gave a press conference denouncing prison conditions.
On 12/6/2002 Dr. Biscet was re-detained with 16 other dissidents after they attempted to meet at a home in Havana to discuss human rights. Even though he was kept in detention since December, Dr. Biscet was tried together with the dissidents arrested in March 2003 and sentenced to 25 years in prison. He is an Amnesty International prisoner of conscience.
To love one's neighbor is also to love one's enemy. Although in reality that qualifier-"enemy" does not exist in my vocabulary. I recognize that I only have adversaries and I have acquired the capacity to love them because in this way we do away with violence, wrath, vengeance, hatred and substitute them with justice and forgiveness
- Dr. Oscar Elias Biscet Gonzalez,
upon completing a 40 day fast in 1999 to protest the 40th anniversary of dictatorship
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Protest Worsening Prison Conditions For Ill Cuban Activist
Dr. Oscar Elias Biscet is seriously ill and suffering from chronic gastritis and hypertension. The conditions in which he is serving his 25 year prison term - imposed after an unfair trial in 2003 for his non-violent advocacy of human rights - are deteriorating.
Prison officials recently informed his family members that they are punishing him for his peaceful protest of prison conditions and threatened that those conditions could get worse.
Dr. Biscet is one of 75 human rights activists and independent journalists sentenced in the spring of 2003 to prison terms of up to 28 years.
Throughout much of his time in prison, Dr. Biscet has been held in sub-standard punishment cells, often in solitary confinement or with violent criminals. For long periods of time, he has been deprived of any outside communication, visits or vital medications sent by his family. He is currently being held in a windowless cell which lacks adequate water and from which he is infrequently taken outside.
Dr. Biscet's harsh prison conditions have further aggravated his poor health and at one point last year, he was reported to have lost more than 60 pounds. Cuban authorities should unconditionally release this peaceful human rights defender and all those imprisoned for the non-violent expression of their beliefs.
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Dr. Biscet and his wife in happier times.
Biscet's wife,Elsa Morejon Hernandez, holds up a photo of her imprisoned husband
