Óscar Elías Biscet González (born July 20, 1961 in Havana, Cuba) is a Cuban physician and an advocate for human rights and democratic freedoms in Cuba. He is also the founder of the Lawton Foundation. Biscet was given a 25-year prison sentence in Cuba for allegedly committing crimes against the sovereignty and the integrity of the Cuban territory. Despite appeals from the United Nations, foreign governments, and international human rights organizations, the Cuban Government refused to release Biscet until March 11, 2011. In recognition of his "advocacy efforts for human rights and democracy" in Cuba, Biscet was presented with the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2007 by U.S. President George W. Bush. Beginnings Biscet received a degree in medicine in 1985; the following year he initiated protests which led to his immediate suspension. Starting in 1988, Biscet revealed his political tension with the communist regime through speech. The Cuban government in 1994 officially opened a case file on Biscet, labeling him a counter-revolutionary and "dangerous". In 1997, Biscet founded the Lawton Foundation. Political and philosophical background Henry David Thoreau, Mohandas Gandhi, and Martin Luther King Jr. are major influences in Biscet's writing and motivation. Others from whom Biscet has taken inspiration are Abraham Lincoln, Thomas Jefferson, José Martí, and Frederick Douglass. He is a strong believer in a democratic government and proved perseverance in criticizing abortion and the suppression of civil liberties. Expulsion from the National Health Service Biscet was expelled from the Cuban National Health System in February 1998 because of his activism. The physician's wife, Elsa Morejón was also expelled from nursing (her profession) when her husband started to oppose a widespread use of Rivanol for abortions. 1999 arrest In August 1999, Biscet, along with two dozen other dissidents, were detained by Cuban police for organizing meetings in Havana and Matanzas. He was released five days earlier on August 17, 1999. He claimed that while in custody, the police tortured him by beating, kicking, stripping, and burning him. The government then threatened to detain him longer if he continued promoting his counterrevolutionary activities in Cuba. Later in 1999, he was sent back in prison for a three-year sentence for dishonoring a national symbol, public disorder, and instigating to commit crime, after having protested Cuba's lack of freedom by showing the Cuban flag upside down. Amnesty International named him a prisoner of conscience and called for his immediate release.