Dr. Oscar Elias Biscet is a particularly important case to us as it was one of Freedom Now’s first cases. Dr. Biscet is a doctor and noted advocate for human rights and democratic freedom in Cuba. He is the founder of the Lawton Foundation for Human Rights and is a leader of Friends of Human Rights, a grassroots organization through which small groups of civilians discuss human rights.
Dr. Biscet was arrested on December 6, 2002, in Havana on the way to a colleague’s home to attend a meeting of the Friends of Human Rights. When police tried to arrest Dr. Biscet, he and 16 colleagues sat on the ground and chanted, “long live human rights” and “freedom for political prisoners.” Everyone in the group was beaten and arrested. Dr. Biscet’s arrest came only six weeks after his release from a prior illegal prison term, also resulting from his support for human rights in Cuba.
Since engaging in his case in 2005, Freedom Now conducted extensive global outreach to raise international awareness of Dr. Biscet’s case. This included initiating an urgent appeal from several UN special procedures, facilitating the publishing of op-eds, nominating him for the Nobel Peace Prize, highlighting his role as a recipient of the Presidential Medal of Freedom (which he was finally presented with 2016), and preparing a report for the UN Human Rights Council prior to Cuba’s universal periodic review.
Dr. Biscet’s release — on March 11, 2011 — followed the July 2010 announcement by the Cuban Catholic Church that a number of unjustly-imprisoned Cuban political prisoners would be freed. On March 14, 2011, Dr. Biscet held his first post-release press conference. He has thanked Freedom Now for their participation in securing his release.
Dr. Biscet continues to be a lively voice for freedom in Cuba. In 2012, he began a partnership with Radio Marti to host a weekly radio program that was carried throughout the country where he discusses human rights abuses and gives a voice to the Cuban government’s victims. However, he continues to be harassed by the government. In September 2024 he was arrested and held for 12 hours in police custody.