Editor’s Note: The below is a slightly expanded version of a piece that appeared in the May 2, 2011, issue of National Review.

‘I need to get to work,” says Dr. Óscar Elías Biscet. Are you familiar with him? He is perhaps the foremost Cuban democracy activist, a symbol of the general resistance to the Castro dictatorship. Has he been neglecting his work? Not exactly. For the past twelve years, essentially, he has been in prison, suffering the things that the regime’s prisoners have always suffered. George W. Bush gave him the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2007. The recipient could not accept it in person, of course. But he has now been released from prison. The day, so long hoped for, by so many of us, was March 11. I spoke to him three weeks after.

Biscet was born in 1961 and has a wife, Elsa Morejón Hernández, and two children, Winnie and Yan. The children have been in the United States for several years; Elsa, like her husband, is in Cuba. Biscet obtained his degree in internal medicine in 1985. A few years later, he embarked on human-rights activism. In 1994, he was charged with “dangerousness,” a very common charge. It means that the individual in question will not submit meekly to dictatorial rule. In 1997, Biscet established the Lawton Foundation for Human Rights (“Lawton” being the name of the Havana neighborhood in which he lived). The organization, of course, is banned. In 1998, he spoke out strongly against abortion, particularly late-term abortion: In his work as a doctor, he saw ghastly things. The authorities responded harshly to his protest.

After being detained repeatedly — 26 times — Biscet was arrested in 1999 and thrown in prison for three years. He was released on Oct. 31, 2002, and had 36 days outside of prison. During this time, he worked on his “Democratic Principles for Cuba” and a civic project called “Club for Friends of Human Rights.” He was again arrested on Dec. 6, 2002, and underwent his ordeal until last March 11.

I found it somewhat amazing to hear his voice, after reading about him and writing about him for many years. His voice was low, grave, and resolute. We spoke by phone, Biscet in Havana, his questioner in New York. Serving as translator between us was Aramis Perez, of the Directorio Democrático Cubano in Miami.

Biscet has felt “a kind of ambivalence” in the last few weeks. Those are his words: “a kind of ambivalence.” “I’m happy to be able to return home to my wife, but I’m unhappy to see an entire people still without freedom.” In his view, Cuba as a whole is “the big prison” while El Combinado del Este, where he and so many other dissidents have been confined, is “the little prison.” “We who live under this dictatorship look to the sea and know that the sea is our prison bars.” Biscet also says, “This great, beautiful island of Cuba has been converted by the Castro brothers into their own personal estate.”

Why, in his estimation, did the government choose to release him? “Because of the economic crisis, coupled with the social and moral crisis. The government offers false expectations of democratic change. They do this so that free countries will give them economic support. My release is part of the effort to create false expectations.” The government’s overriding goal is “to be financed. They want more money, even as they impoverish the Cuban people, and, with money, they will remain in power.”

In the weeks before Biscet’s release, a movement was building around the world to get him the Nobel peace prize. He was nominated by the prime minister of Hungary, U.S. congressmen, members of the European Parliament, and others. Did this movement have an effect on the Cuban government and its decision making? Biscet is less likely to get the prize outside of prison than he was inside. He can’t say for sure whether the Nobel prize played a part in the government’s calculations. But he can say this: “It was a political error for the regime to imprison the Group of 75,” an error that cost the regime in the court of world opinion. The 75 are the democracy activists arrested in the crackdown of March 2003, known as the “Black Spring.” These prisoners have now been released.