The Police arrest Cuban opposition leader and former political prisoner Oscar Elías Biscet.

The Cuban opposition leader and former political prisoner Oscar Elías Biscet was arrested in Havana on Tuesday as he left his home to go to a work meeting on the occasion of the eleventh anniversary of the Emilia Project, which he leads on the Island.

According to a report by Radio Televisión Martí, which cited the complaint of the activist’s wife, Elsa Morejón, several neighbors reported that two uniformed policemen followed Biscet and took him into custody to an unknown destination.

The note also specified that the place of the activists’ meeting, in the neighborhood of El Vedado, was surrounded by police officers.

“A group of human rights activists were going to meet in El Vedado with him because today is the anniversary of the Emilia Project, and they were going to do a review of the work they have done over all these years throughout Cuba,” Morejón said, who held the State Security and the Cuban regime responsible for the physical and psychological integrity of her husband.

Radio Televisión Martí reminded that on this same date, but in 2022, Biscet was detained under similar circumstances.

In a statement demanding the immediate release of the opposition leader, the Cuban Resistance Assembly pointed out that “once again the Castro regime shows its repressive identity, violating the human rights of the Cuban people, and in this case, the inalienable rights of the brave brother in the struggle, Dr. Oscar Elías Biscet.”

“We join the declarations of the Center for a Free Cuba, that the European Union should suspend its economic assistance treaty with Havana until the Cuban political prisoners are free,” said Orlando Gutiérrez Boronat, coordinator of the opposition organization of the Cuban exile.

Similarly, the Cuban-American representative to the Florida Congress, Mario Díaz-Balart, said he felt “repulsion for the reports that once again the Cuban regime has arrested Dr. Oscar Elías Biscet, along with several of his fellow freedom defenders.”

“Dr. Biscet spent more than a decade in prison for daring to speak out against the atrocious human rights abuses of the regime and for founding the internationally acclaimed human rights organization, the Lawton Foundation,” he wrote on his social network X profile.

“For those who still seek to make more concessions and trade with the communist dictatorship in Cuba, they just have to look at the torment inflicted on this brave man. The regime in Cuba remains as oppressive and malevolent as it was during the days of the firing squads, and it is dangerous to appease it or give it sanction relief or other concessions. Dr. Biscet is a true hero and leader, and must be released immediately and unconditionally; those responsible for his arrest must face severe consequences,” he demanded.

Díaz-Balart remembered that Biscet, “adhering to the principles of non-violent civil resistance (…) was declared a prisoner of conscience by Amnesty International in 2003 and released from prison after years of international condemnation in 2011”.

Furthermore, the Cuban opposition received the Presidential Medal of Freedom from the United States in 2007.

“In addition to being a doctor, Dr. Biscet is an intellectual who led a radio program called ‘Lawton Libre’ through the Office of Cuba Broadcasting, and has written opinion columns for Newsweek, Diario Las Américas, ACI Prensa, National Review, and The Hill,” he added.

The Emilia Project, led by Biscet, is inspired by the nineteenth-century Cuban independence fighter Emilia Teurbe Tolón, and seeks “the conquest of fundamental human rights, democracy, and freedom of the Cuban people.”