HUMAN RIGHTS VIOLATION
An Alert to the International Community

HUMAN RIGHTS' ACTIVIST TRIAL IN CUBA IS IMMINENT
Dr. Oscar Elías Biscet González,
president of the Lawton Foundation for Human Rights

Dr. Oscar Elías Biscet González, a 38 year old human rights activist in Cuba, arbitrarily detained since November 3, 1999 and accused of "insult to the motherland and disorderly conduct" is to be taken to trial any moment as expressed by a Cuban official to Elsa Morejón, Dr. Biscet's wife, informing her that the prosecutor is already in possession of his file EFP 662 - 1999. The defense attorney, Sergio Hernández, has already presented his appeal asking Dr. Biscet's immediate freedom.

On Wednesday, December 15, 1999, Elsa Morejón visited her husband at the prison in the Technical Department of Investigation located at Cien and Aldabó streets in Havana and found her husband in good spirits and good health, in spite of the fact that he is incarcerated in a "tapiada" ( a dark cell with no sunlight ) along with three common prisioners. Since his first detention on July 9, 1998 to the present, Dr. Biscet has been incarcerated 26 times. Currently, Dr. Biscet is under pressure by Cuban authorities to leave Cuba, to which the physician reiterates his desire of never abandoning his country.

Dr. Oscar Elías Biscet González a specialist in internal medicine is president of the Lawton Foundation for Human Rights, a humanitarian organization, considered illegal by Cuban authorities, which promotes through nonviolent means the defense of all human rights in Cuba, particularly the right to life. This Cuban physician was expelled from the Cuban National Health System for carrying out a peaceful demonstration against abortion and, along with his wife and son was evicted from their home, presently depending on the charity of friends to survive. Cuban authorities have psychologically and physically mistreated Dr. Biscet through beatings, humiliations, threats, blackmails, intimidating interrogatories, and arbitrary incarcerations with common criminals and mentally insane individuals. Multiple attempts have been made, to no avail by Cuban authorities, to have Dr. Biscet undergo mental examinations. On Monday, November 29, 1999 Dr. Biscet was taken by the political police to the Psychiatric Hospital in Havana for psychiatric tests he refused, in protest of the psychiatric tortures suffered for so many years by political prisioners at said hospital. ( Testimonies of these psychiatric abuses have been documented and sent to the United Nations Human Rights Commission.)

WE DEMAND THE IMMEDIATE RELEASE OF DR. OSCAR ELIAS BISCET GONZALEZ, SO THAT THIS PEACEFUL HUMAN RIGHTS ACTIVIST MAY CONTINUE HIS STRUGGLE FOR JUSTICE IN CUBA.

We urgently ask all men and women of good will, the international press, human rights organizations, world health organizations, and dignataries of all democratic nations to denounce, before the Cuban government, the unjust incarceration and imminent trial of this Cuban physician whose only crime is to honor the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in his own country.

For further information:
Angel Pablo Polanco - Independent journalist in Cuba 011-537-416649
Support Committee for the Lawton Foundation, U.S.A. (305) 223-9703, (305) 265-9885

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