My name is Elsa Morejon Hernandez. I’m a Christian woman who defends human rights in Cuba. My wish is that this letter serves as testimony to the world concerning the injustices and psychological terror presently suffered by those of us who struggle peacefully in our country for the freedom of all Cubans.

My husband, Dr. Oscar Elias Biscet González, president of the Lawton Foundation for Human Rights, is a pro-democracy activist presently incarcerated and accused of committing crimes against Cuban State Security. He has been subjected to the physical and psychological mistreatment suffered by all those who oppose the present Cuban regime such as beatings, threats, humiliation, blackmail, intimidating interrogatories and incarcerations in cells deprived of light, along with insane individuals and common criminals.

On several occasions, State Security tried to subject him to psychiatric examinations, pressured him to leave Cuba and has prohibited him from practicing medicine.

For his peaceful struggle in favor of human rights, my husband had to serve a three-year sentence in the maximum security prison "Cuba Si," 768 kilometers away from his family. Thirty-six days following his excarceration on Oct. 31, 2002, he was rearrested Dec. 6 as he was about to assemble with other activists to discuss human rights. He remained 19 days at a Police Precinct (PNR) in Havana, sharing a cell with five delinquents and sleeping on the floor.

He was transferred Dec. 24, 2002, to the Combinado del Este Prison where he was confined to a cellblock with 30 common criminals. Since March 29, 2003, he has been imprisoned at Villa Marista, the general headquarters of the political police in Havana, and was summoned to appear Monday, April 7, before the Municipal Tribunal of 10 de Octubre.

Authorities are requesting a 25-year sentence, based on article 91 of the Cuban Penal Code, which implies Crimes against State Security.

Authorities are implicating my husband, Dr. Oscar Elías Biscet, in a wave of arrests which began this past March 18 in the island, involving almost 100 independent journalists and civil activists. For their peaceful dissent, these Cubans are accused of subverting the Cuban socialist system, a crime for which many are expected to serve life sentences and may even be executed.

These charges are inappropriate allegations against my husband, a man who promotes and carries out peaceful, public and open activities in defense of all human rights, particularly the right to life. His ideals are the only instruments he uses to implement his desire that civil and political rights are respected in Cuba.

Dr. Biscet has been prohibited from associating with independent organizations, since in Cuba all NGOs answer to the interests of the present communist regime.

We have never submitted ourselves to the interests of a foreign state but have appealed to the solidarity of foreign countries through their embassies in Havana expressing our aspirations to live in freedom in our own country.

Convinced of my husband's innocence and of all activists presently incarcerated, I urgently ask dignitaries of democratic nations, human rights organizations, religious, civic and political leaders, the international press and all men and women of good will in the world to demand before the Cuban regime the unconditional and immediate freedom of Dr. Oscar Elias Biscet and all those prisoners whose only crime is to honor the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in their own country.

Elsa Morejon Hernandez
Acosta 464 entre 8va y 9na, Lawton
Municipio 10 de Octubre
La Habana, Cuba.

Testimony provided via telephone from Cuba and translated into English.
Coalition of Cuban-American Women/LAIDA CARRO
E-mail: Joseito76@aol.com

Related story from Reuters:

Cuba Jails Dissidents Despite World Criticism
Tue April 8, 2003 07:27 PM ET
By Anthony Boadle

HAVANA (Reuters) - Communist-run Cuba, undeterred by an outpouring of criticism from foreign governments and international human rights groups, handed down another stiff sentence on Tuesday to one of the dozens of dissidents arrested in recent weeks. Luis Enrique Ferrer, a local coordinator in the city of Las Tunas for the democratic reform campaign called the Varela Project, was sentenced to 28 years in prison, the heaviest possible sentence, dissident sources said.

Most of the 78 dissidents arrested since March 18 in the worst repression of President Fidel Castro's opponents in decades have received sentences in non-public trials ranging from 12 to 28 years in prison. With no public information on the trials, the Cuban Human Rights Commission struggled to compile a list of sentences handed down so far by courts in 13 cities across Cuba. At least 71 have been sentenced. The most prominent still awaiting sentencing is civil disobedience activist and dissident physician Oscar Elias Biscet, who had been arrested in December just months after serving a three-year prison term. He was tried on Monday and will be sentenced on Thursday, said his wife, Elsa Morejon.

Most of the dissidents were convicted of treason for collaborating with Cuba's longtime ideological foe, the United States, where the Bush administration has stepped up support for the small but growing opposition movement on the island. Rights groups said the draconian sentences by improvised courts, where undercover agents that infiltrated the dissident groups were produced as witnesses, was a throwback to Stalinism.

The Swedish government condemned the jailings on Tuesday and said they jeopardized Cuba's chances of entering the Cotonou preferential trade and aid agreement between the European Union and 78 mostly former European colonies. "The mass arrests of dissidents that have taken place lately are one more example of the human rights violations being committed in Cuba," Swedish Foreign Minister Anna Lindh said.

"The absence of respect for human rights in Cuba will continue to affect the country's relations with Sweden and the prospects of increased cooperation between the EU and Cuba," she added in a statement.

The U.S. House of Representatives on Tuesday passed a nonbinding resolution condemning the crackdown on dissidents and calling on international organizations to follow suit. The resolution, which passed 414-0, called for the "immediate release of all Cuban political prisoners." It also urged the Bush administration to press for a resolution at the United Nations Commission on Human Rights with the "strongest possible condemnation" of the current crackdown.

Amnesty International said the jailings were "appalling" and "a giant step backwards for human rights" in Cuba. "These people, who Amnesty International fears may have been arrested for nothing more than the peaceful exercise of fundamental freedoms, have been sentenced after manifestly unfair trials conducted in haste and secrecy," the London-based group said in a statement.

Cuba's best known dissident poet, writer and journalist, Raul Rivero, 57, and economists Martha Beatriz Roque -- the only woman put on trial -- and Oscar Espinosa Chepe got 20 year sentences on Monday. The toughest sentences were for independent journalists and organizers of the Varela Project, a petition for reforms to Cuba's one-party socialist state that gathered more than 11,000 signatures last year.

The initiative's leader Oswaldo Paya, who won the European Union's top human rights award, the Sakharov Prize, in December, was not arrested, but his organization, the first nationwide opposition network, was dismembered in the round up. Among the 28 journalists put on trial, photographer Omar Rodriguez Saludes was given 27 years in prison.

The International Press Institute, the global network of editors, media executives and journalists based in Vienna, condemned the trials in a letter to Castro.

"IPI strongly condemns this latest move against Cuba's dissidents, apparently meant to silence once and for all the critical voice of the regime's opponents while world attention is focused on the war in Iraq," IPI director Johann Fritz wrote.

International P.E.N., the world association of writers based in London, also sent a protest letter to Castro demanding the release of "valiant poet" Raul Rivera and other jailed writers.

Canada, the largest foreign investor in Cuba, protested the jailings on Monday when Foreign Minister Bill Graham summoned the Cuban ambassador in Ottawa and told him the Canadian government was "deeply disturbed by the severity of the sentences."

Someday, Cuba will be free and they will become part of the United States. It is meant to be. Maybe not in our lifetime but certainly before the current century is out. Here's how I see it coming about. Castro isn't going to live forever. In fact, he's nearly at the end of the line. A more progressive government will almost surely take it's place and slowly but surely, relations will be re-established with the United States and the current embargo will be lifted. At that point, things will accelerate rapidly. The economy of Cuba will boom and the people of Cuba will be exposed to American culture. Not all of it will be pretty, for example, the Dixie Chicks might play a concert there. But it won't all be that bad. In about 20 years, Havana will look little different than Miami Beach!

Then the subject of U.S. territorial status will be breached. By then, Puerto Rico will have become the 54th state (following British Columbia, Alberta and Saskatchewan) and Cuban statehood will be seen as a fait accompli.

Of course, if violent revolution was to happen in Cuba right now, we could advance the timetable considerably.

AAAS Human Rights Action Network

Date:	31 August 1998
Case Number:	cu9811_bis
Victim:	Oscar Elias Biscet
Country:	Cuba
Subject:	Physician detained
Issues:	Freedom from arbitrary arrest and detention; Freedom of opinion and expression; Right to liberty and security of the person
Type of alert:	New
Related alerts:	27 September 1999; 18 November 1999; 2 November 2001; 23 January 2003; 8 April 2003

FACTS OF THE CASE:

Doctor Oscar Elias Biscet, a Cuban physician and anti-abortion activist, was arrested on 9 July 1998 along with his colleague, a computer technician. The two men have been charged with "improper use of state-owned materials." The arrest stems from a study the men conducted between January and February 1997 on abortion.

In the course of their research the two men used computers belonging to the hospital Hijas de Galicia; however, the disproportionate response by Cuban authorities may be due to their anti-abortion and political activities, and the release of the study's results to members of the foreign press. Dr. Biscet has been engaged in a campaign against the use of the drug Rivanol, reportedly prescribed to induce abortion after the third month of pregnancy, and both men are founders of the Lawton Foundation for Human Rights.

The arrests of Dr. Biscet and his colleague constitute serious violations of international human rights standards enumerated in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which was adopted without opposition by the United Nations General Assembly on 10 December 1948. They include:

Everyone has the right to life, liberty, and security of person (Article 3);
no one shall be subjected to arbitrary arrest, detention or exile (Article 9); and
everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression (Article 19).

(Sources of information on this case include The Miami Herald, Cuba Press, and the Lawton Foundation for Human Rights.)

RECOMMENDED ACTION:

Please send telexes, telegrams, faxes, or airmail letters:

Calling for the immediate and unconditional release of Dr. Biscet and his colleague on the grounds that they may have been arrested solely for the peaceful expression of their opinion; and
urging the Cuban government to respect the rights to freedom of expression and opinion.

APPEAL AND INQUIRY MESSAGES SHOULD BE SENT TO:

Sr. Carlos Dotres Martinez
Ministro de la Salud Publica
Ministerio de la Salud Publica
Calle 23, No. 301
Vedado, La Habana, Cuba
Salutation: Senor Ministro

Dr. Juan Escalona Reguera
Fiscal General de la Republica
San Rafael 3
La Habana, Cuba
Fax: 011 53 7 333 164
Salutation: Senor Fiscal General

Sr. Jefe del Centro de Investigaciones del Departamento de Seguridad del Estado (DSE)
Versalles
Santiago de Cuba
Prov. Oriente, Cuba
Salutation: Sr. Director

COPIES SENT TO:

Sr. Roberto Robaina Gonzalez
Ministro de Relaciones Exteriores
Calzada No. 360
Vedado
La Habana, Cuba
Fax: 011 53 7 333 085 or 335 261
Salutation: Senor Ministro

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