Happy Birthday, Dr. Biscet

Who is Dr. Oscar Elias Biscet?

Via e-mail, the Coalition of Cuban-American Women has one answer:

A black Cuban physician (Specialist in Internal Medicine) and follower of Mahatma Ghandi and Martin Luther King, he is a leader in the peaceful civil rights movement that struggles to establish a state based on the rule of law through nonviolent civil disobedience in Cuba.

Arrested more than 26 times, Dr. Biscet is president of the unofficial Lawton Foundation for Human Rights in Havana, a pro-life, human rights organization. Due to his human rights activities, Dr. Biscet was expelled from the Cuban National Health System; prohibited from practicing as a physician in his own country; his wife was dismissed from her job as a nurse; and his family was evicted from their home.

He served a 3-year sentence in a maximum security prison 450 miles away from his home (1999-2002), accused of “insult to the symbols of the homeland," "public disorder," and "incitement to commit an offense," for displaying two Cuban flags in an inverted vertical position at a press conference where a public march was announced to denounce human rights violations during the 1999 Latin American Summit in Havana.

Dr. Biscet was released on October 31, 2002, was rearrested 36 days later, and was tried April 7, 2003, during a Cuban governmental crackdown that took place in March-April 2003. He was sentenced under Article 91 of the Penal Code to 25 years in prison. Since 1999, he has been confined to maximum-security prisons facilities under the most severe prison protocol and to punishment cells for refusing, as a prisoner of conscience, to obey any prison rule applied to common prisoners. On one occasion, he lost 40 pounds when he was placed in an underground dungeon with a dangerous criminal. He is presently suffering from severe essential hypertension, duodenal ulcer, osteoarthritis of the cervical spine, and he has lost most of his teeth due to a severe oral infection.

The 19th was Dr. Biscet's 46th birthday.

His wife pays tribute to Biscet, in a letter posted here.
(Cross-posted at Uncommon Sense.)