Imprisoned Cuban Physician, Guatemalan Forensic Scientist Wins NYAS Human Rights Award

Main Category: Litigation / Medical Malpractice
Also Included In: Public Health
Article Date: 19 Sep 2008 - 8:00 PDT

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An imprisoned Cuban physician and a Guatemalan forensic scientist have been awarded the 2008 New York Academy of Sciences Heinz R. Pagels Human Rights of Scientists Award.

The Academy's Human Rights Committee bestowed the awards on Oscar Elias Biscet, MD, and Fredy Peccerelli during the Academy's September 18 Annual Meeting. Dr. Angel Garrido of the Lawton Foundation for Human Rights, of which Dr. Biscet is president, accepted the award on his colleague's behalf.

Dr. Biscet, a 46-year-old community organizer and human rights advocate, is a widely known Cuban political prisoner who began serving a 25-year term in 2002. He is the founder of the Lawton Foundation, a human rights organization that peacefully promotes the rights of Cubans through nonviolent civil disobedience. In 1998, Dr. Biscet and his wife, Elsa Morejon, a nurse, were both fired from the Havana Municipal Hospital for his open criticism of the Cuban government. In 2007, President George W. Bush awarded Dr. Biscet the Medal of Freedom, one of many honors he has received for his human rights work.

Peccerelli is a founding member of the Guatemalan Forensic Anthropology Foundation, which, since 1992, has carried out exhumations of unmarked mass graves containing the remains of individuals murdered during that country's 36-year armed conflict. Despite repeated threats against him and his family, Peccerelli has continued to carry out their work, which that has provided forensic investigation teams with crucial scientific evidence in the few cases where perpetrators of human rights abuses have been convicted in Guatemala.

The Pagels Awards were conferred on the two honorees by Henry Greenberg, chair of the Human Rights Committee. Greenberg, associate director of cardiology at St. Luke's Roosevelt Hospital and associate professor of clinical medicine at the Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons, says the committee has been aware of the work of the two honorees for several years and selected them for the award this year based to recognize their heroism and "to raise the noise level in their support."

First presented in 1979 to Russian physicist Andrei Sakharov, the award has gone to such imminent scientists as Chinese dissident Fang Li-Zhi, Russian Nuclear Engineer Alexander Nikitin, and Cuban Economist Martha Beatriz Roque Cabello. The 2005 Pagels awards went to Zafra Lerman, distinguished professor of Science and Public Policy and head of the Institute for Science Education and Science Communication, Columbia College, Chicago; and Herman Winick, assistant director and professor emeritus of the Stanford Synchrotron Radiation Laboratory, Stanford University.

For more on the 2008 winners and past honorees, go to www.nyas.org/programs/award.asp.

About the New York Academy of Sciences

Founded in 1817, the New York Academy of Sciences (NYAS) is an independent, nonprofit organization committed to advancing science, technology, and society worldwide. With more than 25,000 members in 140 countries, NYAS is creating a global community of science for the benefit of humanity. NYAS's core mission is to advance scientific knowledge, positively impact the major global challenges of society with science-based solutions, and increase the number of scientifically informed individuals in society at large. To learn more, visit www.nyas.org.