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Someone you should know about

Dr. Oscar Elias Biscet is an outspoken abortion opponent in a pro-abortion nation that doesn’t take kindly to dissent. In 1999, he and another pro-life doctor staged a peaceful pro-life protest in front of an abortion facility and were savagely beaten by a mob. He was then tried and sentenced to three years in jail for simply stating the truth. Three years and one month later, Dr. Biscet was arrested and again savagely beaten. This time, he was sentenced to 25 years in jail. His torture at the hands of Castro’s henchmen is well documented. He continues to speak from his cell for the dignity of all life including that of the unborn. ATTACHED: Cuban abortion opponent receives award – Oct 30 2007: ATTACHED: Oscar Elias Biscet – Cuban prisoner of conscience.

VIDEO: Dr. Oscar Elias Biscet [1:20] – November 6, 2007 Congressman Mario Diaz-Balart commends Presidential Medal of Freedom honoree Dr. Oscar Elias Biscet for his bravery and dedication to human rights and democracy in Cuba.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1GdpWX-Mm6c

For decades, various American journalists and celebrities have rhapsodized about Castro’s supposed island paradise, resolutely ignoring the mountains of evidence that it is in reality a tropical dungeon where prisoners of conscience like Biscet pay a fearful price for their insistence on telling the truth. ATTACHED: A hero in Castro’s gulag by JJacoby – Nov 4 2007

I remember my father telling me that we all have an obligation to stand up for our freedom. In his letters from prison, he has remained resolute and unapologetic – repeating that freedom is worth the sacrifice. I live in the United States now, and I appreciate its liberties every day. But, like my father, I yearn to live in a free Cuba. ATTACHED: My father’s crime by YVMorejon – Nov 4 2007

In Cuba, the gulag and its suffering have not ended. Dr. Biscet’s medal serves to remind us of this fact. By raising the profile of his struggle for a free Cuba, the award also highlights what Castro’s regime fears most. It is not the guns and tanks of some imperial invader, but rather the faith, courage and nonconformity of the country’s own people. Dr. Biscet, 46, is a renowned pacifist and devout Christian. He has said that he is inspired by the examples of Martin Luther King, Gandhi and the Dalai Lama. ATTACHED: A Cuban Hero by MAOGrady – Nov 4 2007

Why am I sending this now? Because I only just learned of it when I read this:  ATTACHED: Rush Jesse and Fidel by H. Fontova.

– Oct 17 2009:

The world’s longest-suffering victim of modern racism isn’t Nelson Mandela; it’s Eusebio Penalver. And the racist regime that kept him locked up and tortured him for 29 years isn’t South Africa; it’s Castro’s Cuba. Today the prison population in Stalinist/Apartheid Cuba is 90% black. Shortly before his death in 2006, Penalver had a chance to tell his story. “For months I was naked in a 6 x 4 foot cell. That’s 4 feet high, so you couldn’t stand. But I felt a great freedom inside myself. I refused to commit spiritual suicide.”  His jailers often taunted him with racial slurs like, “Nigger! We pulled you down from the trees and cut off your tail!” Presently, a black Cuban doctor, Oscar Elias Biscet (an Amnesty Int. prisoner of conscience) suffers in Castro’s torture chambers essentially for saying things about Castro similar to what Nancy Pelosi, Bill Maher and Michael Moore made a career of saying about President Bush. Dr Biscet also denounced the Castro regime’s policy of forced abortions, which goes a long way towards explaining why you’ve never heard of him (and won’t) in the MSM. For the record: President Bush awarded Dr Biscet the Presidential Medal of Freedom two years ago in a ceremony virtually blacked out by the MSM. N.b., I was curious about the “virtual blackout” statement so did my own research. Fontova wasn’t exaggerating. Not only was Biscet’s award almost completely ignored by the media, but so were the other seven honorees, including several I would’ve thought the media would have been happy to celebrate including Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, the black female president of Liberia and the first woman elected president of any African nation and Harper Lee, author of the beloved Pulitzer Prize-winning novel “To Kill a Mockingbird” which is probably the most widely read book dealing with race in America and whose protagonist, Atticus Finch, is the most enduring fictional image of racial heroism. Also honored was Benjamin Hooks, the NAACP’s former executive director and a pioneer of the civil rights movement. Hooks had a reputation for calling President Reagan a racist during his frequent television appearances, which really speaks to the big-heartedness of the Republican president who selected him for the highest civilian award our country has to offer. It just boggles my mind that given a choice between honoring these people and admitting that President Bush did something, anything at all, that was good, the press chose to keep silent. Shame on them. They deserve their lousy ratings and impending bankruptcies. I googled “Biscet Medal of Freedom”, got 2,870 hits and looked at the first 100. The bulk were blogs and opinion pieces. I found only two U.S. news sources who fully reported the story — NPR and LifeTalk News. Fox News and USA Today printed the Associated Press version which only gave very short blerbs about each honoree. Biscet’s said: “A human rights advocate and champion of freedoms in Cuba, Biscet is a political prisoner in Cuba who is being recognized for his fight against tyranny and oppression.” No mention that he’s black or was targeted by the regime for his pro-life activities. The Washington Post did report the story in some depth, but with a headline so bland it appeared designed to make readers want to NOT read the article. In the body of the story “Cuban Doctor Among Eight Honored at White House”, Biscet’s anti-abortion work didn’t get a mention until paragraph five and the fact that his jailers beat and starve him isn’t brought up until paragraph ten. WaPo never used the word “torture” at all and never noted that Biscet is black. UPI — which boldly places “100 Years of Journalistic Excellence” on its web page header – led off with “Seven named Medal of Freedom Recipients”, then listed all eight names. Yup, that’s “Journalistic Excellence” all right. Not. All it said about Biscet was: “An advocate of a free Cuba, despite being persecuted and imprisoned.” The Miami Herald had this headline — “Cuban dissident Biscet receives presidential medal.” Miami has a big anti-Castro population, so maybe it told the whole story, but the article is no longer available online.

Dr. Biscet is an “Afro-Cuban,” a follower of Mohandas Gandhi and Martin Luther King. If he were a prisoner of anyone but Castro — a Communist dictator — he’d be world-famous. If he were a South African, under apartheid, he’d be on the stamps of virtually every country in the world. If he were a prisoner under a right-wing dictatorship, he’d be featured on 60 Minutes every week. He’d be on the cover of Time magazine every week. College campuses would hold sit-ins where his face would adorn posters and T-shirts. ATTACHED: Remembering Biscet by JNordlinger – Nov 2 2007

Rep. Bobby Rush of Illinois was joyous following his meeting with Fidel Castro, who saluted “this legislative group. The aura of Martin Luther King is accompanying them.” To others of us who honor King, there is a barely surviving black Cuban disciple of King (and Mohandas Gandhi) whom the caucus visitors did not meet because he has been in a Castro brothers’ cage for many years and was off-limits to them. He is Dr. Oscar Elias Biscet, and he is among those designated by Amnesty International as “prisoners of conscience” in Cuban gulags. Since 2003, Dr. Biscet, often brutalized and denied medical care for digestive and other ailments, has occasionally been thrown into an unlit 3-foot-wide underground “punishment” cell with a toilet in the floor. His highest crime of caged disobedience against the state was to protest vicious treatment of fellow prisoners from his cell. Another Cuban follower of King is Iris Garcia, founder of the Rosa Parks Women’s Civil Rights Movement. She and her husband, Afro-Cuban dissenter Jose Luis Garcia Perez, are on a hunger strike trying to bring justice to a family member in a Castro cage. Mr. Garcia, himself often assaulted for disloyalty, told The Washington Post on April 9: “The authorities in my country have never tolerated that a black person [could dare to] oppose the regime.” As I and others have reported, this racism in Cuba is one of the forbidden topics among American idolaters of Fidel Castro. ATTACHED: US Black Caucus visits Cuba – April 28, 2009

SOURCES:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/11/05/AR2007110501912.html

http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2007-11-05-medal-freedom_N.html

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,308256,00.html

http://www.miamiherald.com/top_stories/story/296569.html

http://www.voanews.com/english/archive/2007-11/2007-11-05-voa65.cfm?moddate 07-11-05

http://www.newser.com/story/11027/harper-lee-awarded-medal-of-freedom.html

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