Dissident Dr. Oscar Elías Biscet to be released

Dissident Dr. Oscar Elías Biscet to be released WILFREDO CANCIO ISLA El Nuevo Herald Thu, Oct. 17, 2002 (Translation by RCB)

Doctor Oscar Elías Biscet, one of the most prominent jailed political dissidents in Cuba, will be released next 31st of October after fulfilling a sentence of three years of prison, informed his wife, Elsa Morejón yesterday. The Cuban authorities communicated to her that she had to appear that day, 8 a.m. at the penitentiary Cuba Sí in Holguín, to complete Biscet's, 41, official liberation proceedings. ''He is in good spirits and will continue fighting peacefully for the respect of human rights in Cuba'', affirmed Morejón in telephone conversation from Havana. “He wishes to continue living and working in Cuba”. Morejón that visited Biscet last Friday, thanked the exiled community for the material and moral support given to her husband throughout these years. “It has been a very hard phase in our life and human solidarity has represented an enormous spiritual reward for us”.

The Human Rights Watch (HRW) organization, with headquarters in Washington, emphasized this event as a significant step for the promotion of human rights within Cuba, and referred to the position taken by the Castro regime as lamentable in not allowing the liberation of Biscet before fulfilling his sentence in its totality. “It is a deplorable conduct, that reveals the do-nothing policy of Cuba in the matter of human rights'', affirmed Joan Mariner, assistant director of the HRW for the American hemisphere. The annual sessions of the HRW has denounced the imprisonment of Biscet as an arbitrary and repressive measure by the Cuban regime. Also, the organization Amnesty International included Biscet in its prisoners of conscience list.

Biscet, leader of the Human Rights Lawton Foundation, was arrested for organizing a peaceful march in the days before the IX Latin American Summit of Havana, in 1999. In February of the following year he was condemned with charges of dishonor to the motherland and instigating public disorder.

“They are not giving him not even a minute prior to that day, [the 31st of October] will be exactly three years of imprisonment”, commented last night from Havana Marta Beatriz Roque, Director of the Cuban Institute of Independent Economists (ICEI). Roque, exhorted the foreign press in Cuba to show up that day in the Cuba Sí prison -- about 750 kilometers east of Havana -- so that they witness the moment of liberation of the opposition leader. ''Biscet is a pillar of the internal dissidence, a man who has taught a most valuable lesson for the peaceful fight inside Cuba'', added Roque. The activist indicated that Biscet suffers a chronic stomach infection, aggravated by the fact that he refused to receive medical attention in the penitentiary facilities.

All the requests to be transferred to a prison near the family residence in Havana were dismissed by the authorities. Biscet is in favor of nonviolent fight, identified with the ideas of Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King. Biscet received international attention after presenting a scientific text titled The Rivanol Method, a denunciation on the use of medicine in Cuba to cause abortions of grown fetuses.”

"Biscet has chosen a path of principle that nobody can close'', said Laida Carro, member of the Coalition of Cuban-American Women (CMC) and great promoter of the cause of Biscet in Miami since 1998. “He is a humanist who defends the right of the Cuban to live in freedom, but also to be born, in a country where the abortion has become a rampant epidemic”.

The imminent release of prisoner Biscet takes place just months after the release of another Cuban regime’s prominent prisoner of conscience, Vladimiro Roca.

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Let's see if this time CNN's Chilean communist and despicable Lucia Newman shows up with her cameraman. JUTIA failed to bring her photographer to Paya's Press Conference in Havana more than a month ago. A video presented by Ambrosio Hernandez in his "Detras de la Noticia" showed the communist lackey sitting at one side of the room, talking and laughing but not reporting. I believe that the video was taken by a Mexican reporter, the only one doing his job. Why did Lucia Newman "forget" to bring her cameraman with her at one of the very few Mr. Paya's (Varela Project) press conference in Havana? Because of her numerous omissions, CNN has failed to report the voice of the opposition in Cuba. Chumming with Castro is obviously what interests CNN, not to report human rights violations or the suffering of the enslaved people of Cuba. The place for news. PLEASE... The place for compromised and "special interests" news is more like it. The public is catching on and switching to FOX NEWS, where there is impartial and objective journalism for the most part. Shame on CNN, for biased, compromised, unethical, insensitive and un-American behavior.>>>>

Thanks for the flag and for the good news Judy.

When Jeanne Kirkpatrick met with freed dissidents of the former Soviet Union, they told her how important it was to keep their names in the public eye. First, because in their isolation and suffering, they were inspired to keep going by the knowledge that other people remembered and prayed for them. Second, because the fact that their names were known offered a degree of protection, without which they might otherwise disappear. Jeanne Kirkpatrick and Ronald Reagan were heroes to these brave dissidents. Simply because they remembered their names and bore witness to their unjust imprisonment.

In this context, let us recall the Clinton Administration's response to Dr. Biscet's incarceration and brutal detention. Dr. Biscet was arrested, beaten and tortured because he spoke out against his country's barbaric and inhumane abortion practices, including in certain circumstances, abortions performed without the mother's consent or knowledge. What was the Clinton Administration's response? Nothing. No protest. No objection. Not a word. Not a mention.

The Congressional Black Caucus and racial charlatans and hucksters like the not so Rev'd Je$$e Jack$on and the Hollyweird jackasses are so desperate for causes that they pretend cold-blooded cop killer Abu Jamal Mumia is a political prisoner. Yet they say nothing on behalf of a real political prisoner like Dr. Biscet. Not only that, they travel to Cuba to celebrate Dr. Biscet's jailer and frolic on beach resorts where Cuban citizens are not allowed.

The jackals in our Leftist media never cared about the treatment of political prisoners in Cuba until al Qaeda terrorists were brought to Guantanamo. If there is anything more craven than their silence in the face of innocents tortured by evil jailers in Castro's gulags, it is their emboldened speech when evil men are humanely incarcerated in Guantanamo prison camps to protect the innocent.

Would that these people someday develop a capacity for shame.

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