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Supporting Dissident Scientists in Cuba

As part of the Academy’s continued efforts to advance human rights, a representative recently visited Cuba to advocate for imprisoned dissident scientists.

Published March 1, 2002

By Fred Moreno, Dan Van Atta, Jill Stolarik, and Jennifer Tang
Academy Contributors

Image courtesy of andy via stock.adobe.com.

A representative of The New York Academy of Sciences’ (the Academy’s) Committee on Human Rights of Scientists traveled to Cuba in late November to visit the physics faculty at the University of Havana. He also met with political dissidents and provided moral support to the wife of Dr. Oscar Elias Biscet, a physician who has been imprisoned for publishing a medical report deemed to be “antigovernment.”

In an attempt to access the present status of human rights issues among scientists in Cuba, Dr. Eugene M. Chudnovsky, Distinguished Professor of Physics at Herbert Lehman College, the City University of New York, met with two dissidents –– an economist and an electrical engineer –– who were previously imprisoned for their political views. They are not permitted to hold official jobs, and both have illnesses for which they need medical supplies.

Chudnovsky also met with Elsa Morejon, the wife of Biscet, who is serving a three-year prison term for his medical report entitled, “Rivanol –– A Method to Destroy Life.” The report documented a 10-month study at Municipal Hospital of Havana, where the drug had been given to thousands of women.

In the report, Biscet found that 60% of the fetuses survived the procedure, which is supposed to kill the fetus after the first trimester. He wrote that surviving babies were left to die by the attending physicians. Dr. Bizcet charged that Rivanol was being promoted as a way to keep Cuba’s birth rate low.

Barred from Professional Jobs

Dr. Eugene M. Chudnovsky

Although Morejon was Chief Nurse at the Havana Hospital of Endocrinology prior to 1998, neither dissidents nor their immediate families are allowed to have professional jobs in Cuba. Dr. Biscet is being held in a high-security prison in the province of Holguin, 800 km from Havana. It is a three-day journey from Havana for his wife, who is allowed to visit only once a month for a two-hour guarded conversation. Morejon told Chudnovsky her husband has lost some teeth and is in serious need of medical attention. Chudnovsky said he is attempting to assist Dr. Biscet through a number of diplomatic channels.

During his visit, Chudnovsky delivered a talk on Macroscopic Quantum Tunneling at the University of Havana and met with 20 of the school’s 70 physics professors. He also visited the Institute of Materials Science, which is associated with the Physics Department, and toured the Institute of Molecular Biology.

He reported widely varying conditions at the Cuban universities. Most modern and best equipped was the Institute of Molecular Biology. Cuban Premier Fidel Castro believes biotechnology is Cuba’s path to prosperity, according to the hosts, and the institute does both research and production for hospitals in Europe as well as Cuba. Some scientists there are nuclear physicists who switched fields when Russian support for Cuban nuclear research ended.

Good Research Despite Extreme Poverty

Elsa Morejon

The average professor’s salary is about $25 a month, he said, and almost $4 of it goes to buy ration cards that enable Cubans to obtain 5 kg of rice and 10 kg of beans. Since all apartments belong to the government and rent is 10 percent of salary, he said “most professors and university administration live with parents.”

Despite the extreme poverty, he noted that some Cuban professors appear to be doing good research. “Experimentalists are trying to switch to cheap, soft condensed matter physics of sand piles, turbulence, etc.,” Chudnovsky said. “Their primitive electromechanical devices, interfaced with 15-year-old computers, surprise by their ingenuity.”

Chudnovsky said he believes the American Physics Society and allied scientific organizations should support their Cuban colleagues by providing scientific journals, which are now occasionally sent via e-mail from friends in Europe. He said he also will encourage the APS leadership to visit physics departments in Cuba and explore possible roots of cooperation.

“We are doing everything we can to support our members in Cuba,” commented Svetlana Stone Wachtell, director of the Academy’s Human Rights of Scientists program, “and to encourage our members throughout the world to engage in a professional exchange with their colleagues in Cuba.”

Also read: Supporting Scientists and Human Rights in Cuba


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