Bush gives freedom medal to Cuban dissident, Harper Lee, Liberian president

[bjorkfan]

WASHINGTON -- President Bush Monday awarded a Presidential Medal of Freedom to jailed Cuban dissident Oscar Elias Biscet, one of Fidel Castro's harshest critics.

Biscet, jailed since 2003, was one of eight persons to receive the award, the highest given to a civilian by the United States, together with the Congressional Gold Medal.

The other winners included Liberian President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf and novelist Harper Lee, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of To Kill a Mockingbird.

The 46-year-old Biscet, an afro-Cuban physician, has opposed the Cuban government since 1986, when as a recent medical graduate he protested the long hours doctors had to work without pay.

Since then he has become a high-profile dissident and Bush mentioned his name at a speech on Cuba last week.

The founder of the Lawton Foundation for Human Rights, which denounces abuses in Cuba, Biscet has been serving a 25-year jail term since a spring 2003 crackdown on dissidents.

He had been released from prison in 2002, after serving a three-year term.

http://www.miamiherald.com/news/americas/story/288663.html