[Congressional Record Volume 155, Number 27 (Tuesday, February 10, 2009)]
[House]
[Pages H1138-H1139]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                              {time}  2030
                           OSCAR ELIAS BISCET

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from Florida (Mr. Lincoln Diaz-Balart) is recognized for 5 
minutes.
  Mr. LINCOLN DIAZ-BALART of Florida. This last December 6, 2 months 
ago, was the ninth anniversary of the imprisonment--the cruel and 
unjust imprisonment in a cold and damp cell in the most inhuman of 
conditions--of the great Cuban leader in the fight for democracy and 
human rights in that enslaved island, Dr. Oscar Elias Biscet. Dr. 
Biscet is prohibited from even walking in the prison's yard, and he is 
incarcerated along with common criminals.
  Dr. Biscet was released from prison in 2003, for a few weeks, before 
being rearrested and subsequently sentenced to 25 years in the gulag 
due to his peaceful pro-democracy activities.
  Biscet personifies the opposition to the brutal totalitarian regime 
Fidel Castro and his brother, who the dictator has now given some 
additional titles to because of the ailing tyrant's failing health.
  Dr. Biscet is an admirer of Gandhi and Martin Luther King.
  A physician by training, he began his opposition to the totalitarian 
regime by speaking out against the regime's forced abortion when there 
is any indication whatsoever that a pregnancy may have an abnormality 
policy. Biscet described that policy as inhuman. He was immediately 
fired from his job at the hospital, prohibited from practicing his 
profession as a physician, and his wife Elsa Morejon was also fired 
from her job as a practicing nurse. Within hours, the couple and their 
son were summarily evicted from their apartment and their physical 
possessions thrown into the street.
  Fortunately, an elderly patient of Elsa allowed the family to move 
into her house. Dr. Biscet continued peacefully denouncing the 
totalitarian regime's absolute denial of human rights to the Cuban 
people; and, because of that, he has been unjustly and cruelly 
imprisoned for 9 years and counting.
  Hundreds of other brave human rights activists are also suffering in 
the political prisons of the Cuban totalitarian dictatorship for the 
crime of supporting democracy and liberty and opposing tyranny, 
including 23 known journalists thrown into dungeons because of articles 
they wrote that bothered the dictator. No regime in the world has more 
journalists in prison, with the possible exception of another 
totalitarian dictatorship in an obviously much larger nation, communist 
China.
  A few weeks ago, the respected international organization, Reporters 
Without Borders, gave one of those Cuban journalists in the gulag, 
Ricardo Gonzalez Alfonso, sentenced by the Cuban tyrant to 20 years in 
prison in 2003, and currently in very poor health, the Reporters 
Without Borders Journalist of the Year Award. Reporters Without Border 
is to be commended, Mr. Speaker.
  Three other Cuban prisoners of conscience, Aldolfo Fernandez Sainz, 
Pedro Arguelles Moran, and Antonio Diaz Sanchez, are known to have 
begun a hunger strike due to brutal conditions they are subjected to. 
Where is the outrage, Mr. Speaker? Where is the international 
solidarity? Where is there one word of coverage of this in the world's 
press?

[[Page H1139]]

  The reality is that for too many in the world today Cubans are 
supposed to be content with their lot, to be quiet; to, in the words of 
one of our colleagues in this Congress recently, to move on. The regime 
that enslaves a Nation and imprisons hundreds of heroes simply for 
their beliefs deserves unilateral rewards and concessions, many argue, 
such as more travel or dollars. But Dr. Biscet and the many other 
heroes imprisoned in the Castro brothers' gulag will not be able to be 
ignored forever. They must be freed. And political parties must be 
legalized, as well as independent press agencies, and labor unions. And 
free and fair elections must take place in Cuba.
  Many of those imprisoned today, Mr. Speaker, will be democratically 
elected leaders tomorrow. That is what is going to happen in Cuba 
tomorrow. Today, as they suffer the most unjust of cruel imprisonment, 
we here remember and honor them and, once again, demand the immediate 
release of all prisoners of conscience in the Castro brothers' infernal 
gulag.

                          ____________________