[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 154 (2008), Part 18]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page 24510]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                           OSCAR ELIAS BISCET

                                 ______
                                 

                        HON. LINCOLN DIAZ-BALART

                               of florida

                    in the house of representatives

                       Tuesday, December 9, 2008

  Mr. LINCOLN DIAZ-BALART of Florida. Madam Speaker, this last December 
6 was the 9th 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 imprisoned island, Dr. Oscar Elias Biscet. Dr. 
Biscet is prohibited even from walking in the prison's yard, and he is 
incarcerated along with common criminals.
  Dr. Biscet was released from prison early in 2003, for a few weeks 
only, before being re-arrested and subsequently sentenced to 25 years 
in the Communist gulag due to his peaceful pro-democracy activities.
  A few days ago, I was honored to receive a congratulatory letter from 
Ms. Elsa Morejon, Dr. Biscet's courageous and admirable wife.
  Oscar Elias Biscet personifies the opposition to the brutal 
totalitarian regime of Fidel Castro and his brother, who the dictator 
has given some additional titles to because of the ailing tyrant's 
failing health. Dr. Biscet is an admirer of Mahatma Gandhi and Martin 
Luther King, Jr.
  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 the 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 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's 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.
  Just last week the respected international organization, ``Reporters 
Without Borders'' gave one of the Cuban journalists in the gulag, 
Ricardo Gonzalez Alfonso, sentenced by the Cuban tyrant to 20 years in 
prison in the year 2003 and currently in very poor health, the 
``Reporters Without Borders'' Journalist of the Year Award. ``Reporters 
Without Borders'' is to be commended.
  Three other Cuban prisoners of conscience, Adolfo Fernandez Sainz, 
Pedro Arguelles Moran, and Antonio Diaz Sanchez, are known to have 
begun a hunger strike due to the brutal conditions they are subjected 
to.
  Where is the outrage? Where is the solidarity in the international 
community?
  The reality is that for too many in the world today, Cubans are 
supposed to be content with their lot, to be quiet, to . . . ``move 
on'', in the words of one of our pro-Cuban dictatorship colleagues here 
in the U.S. Congress. The regime that enslaves a nation and imprisons 
hundreds of heroes simply for their beliefs deserves unilateral rewards 
and concessions, many maintain.
  But Dr. Oscar Elias 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 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 will be democratically elected leaders 
tomorrow. That is what is going to occur in Cuba tomorrow. Today, as 
they suffer the most unjust of cruel imprisonments, we here remember 
and honor them--and once again demand their immediate release.

                          ____________________