The cause of Cuban freedom scored a large symbolic victory on Wednesday night when Bono, of the world's biggest rock stars, honored Dr. Oscar Elias Biscet, one of the world's greatest freedom fighters.
The Miami Herald has Dr. Biscet's response:
Cuba’s leading dissident, Oscar Elias Biscet, said he “was shaking with happiness” as he learned Thursday that rock star and social activist Bono had sung his praises during a jam-packed U2 concert in Miami.
The 73,000-strong audience at the Sun Life stadium roared with delight Wednesday when Bono urged support for the 49-year-old Biscet and declared that “some day soon Cuba will be free.”
“As you read me what he said, I was shaking with happiness because it showed it’s good when one is chosen as a symbol of his people,” Biscet told El Nuevo Herald, which first told him of Bono’s comments.
“He’s praising not me but all my people, all Cubans,” he added in a telephone interview from his home in Havana. “And I agree that Cuba will be free, if people like Bono join the cause” of human rights on the island.
Biscet, a physician awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by President George W. Bush in 2008, was released from prison in March after serving eight years of a 25-year sentence for “acts against the sovereignty and independence” of Cuba.
Bono praised Biscet during a segment of the U2 concert where the Irish band pays homage to human rights and people walk around the stage carrying paper lanterns with the symbol of the London-based Amnesty International.
“We’d like to do something we’ve never done before,” Bono announced as he asked the audience to hold up their hands during the song Walk On. “A beautiful man, a doctor who spent time in the prisons of Cuba. He was released. His name is Doctor Biscet.
“I want you to hold him up and let everyone in Cuba know he is special to us and we are watching, we are watching. Hold him in your thoughts. Hold him in your prayers,” Bono declared.
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