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Cuban dissident is political prisoner again
Posted on Mon, Dec. 16, 2002 in
The Miami Herald.
The more things change in Cuba, the more repression tightens. Cuba's economy
continues to slide, dissidence is increasing, and international attention is
focused on the Cuban regime's systematic violation of human rights. None of this
stopped agents of the police state from jailing Dr. Oscar Elías Biscet,
one of the island's best known dissidents, only 37 days after he was released
from a three-year prison term.
Dr. Biscet's earlier alleged crime was to ''dishonor patriotic symbols.''
Cuban flags had been hanged upside down in his house, in the international
signal of distress, during a press conference just as foreign leaders gathered
in Havana for an Ibero-American summit. In reality, Dr. Biscet had become too
popular and, thus, a threat to Cuba's totalitarian regime.
A physician who founded the illegal Lawton Foundation for Human Rights, Dr.
Biscet relentlessly staged attention-grabbing protests and denounced Cuba's lack
of freedoms, the death penalty and its abortion practices. Once out of jail, he
started anew, calling for an end to Fidel Castro's dictatorship.
Two Fridays ago, Dr. Biscet attempted to give an informal class on human
rights. A group of dissidents from the province of Matanzas was to join him.
Outside the house where they were to meet, state-security operatives beat and,
ultimately, arrested 17 of those gathered -- even as bystanders denounced the
agents as ''assassins.'' As of last Friday, all but four of the dissidents had
been released, but Dr. Biscet, Raúl Arencibia Fajardo, Orlando Zapata
Amayo and Virgilio Marante Guelmes remained in custody.
Elsa Morejón, Dr. Biscet's wife, was allowed to see him in jail for
10 minutes last Friday. His foot still hurt from what he said was the
''violence'' of the arrest. No official could say if any charges were pending.
Nor did the jailer standing next to them during the visit permit them to talk
about the incident.
Dr. Biscet told her that he expects to be released because he committed no
crime. But there is no telling what the regime, which responds only to Castro's
whims, might do. It would be an injustice if Dr. Biscet were sent back to
prison. That he was jailed at all is incomprehensible, yet it also is another
example of the regime's routine abuse of human rights. Freedom of expression and
association are universal human rights.
Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International have denounced Dr. Biscet's
lastest arrest. They and governments friendly with Cuba would do well to launch
a global campaign to press the regime for his release. His treatment, moreover,
provides ample reason why the European Union should continue to exclude Cuba
from the Cotonou Agreement. The pact offers aid to developing nations that
support human rights and democracy -- what the regime spurns.
Let this also send a message to those such as NAACP members who met Dr.
Biscet in Cuba recently that the idea of an egalitarian society in Cuba today is
pure fiction. The regime mercilessly discriminates against all critics and
ruthlessly violates civil rights. | 
