Dr. Biscet's Testimony of Torture

at 9:40 AM Wednesday, September 21, 2011


Excerpt from an interview with renowned Cuban pro-democracy leader and former political prisoner, Dr. Oscar Elias Biscet:

How do you remember the last eight years [in prison]?

I was mistreated very often. I was tortured. One of the tortures used in the Cuban prisons is solitary confinement in minuscule dungeons, which are totally isolated and dark. They held me there once for five uninterrupted months, without coming out for even one second. I'd have to relieve myself right there, next to the water I drank and the little food I received once a day, barely enough to keep me alive.

What other type of torture were you subjected to?

They would lock me up with mental patients who were deprived of their medication, in order to make them go crazier. There were known cases of these patients killing those with them while in their sleep. I remember it now and it still feels like a nightmare. They would also commonly handcuff men to their hands and feet, thrown face down on the floor for 24 or 48 straight hours… and electric shocks to the genitals.