WASHINGTON (AFP) — US President George W. Bush awarded his top honor to the Cuban dissident Oscar Elias Biscet here on Monday, handing the Presidential Medal of Freedom to the political prisoner's family.
"To the Cuban dictatorship, Dr. Biscet is a 'dangerous man.' He is dangerous in the same way that Martin Luther King, Jr. and Gandhi were dangerous," Bush said at the White House award ceremony.
"He is a man of peace, a man of truth, and a man of faith," he said, before handing the medal -- the highest honor a US president can grant a civilian -- to Biscet's son, Yan Valdes.
Biscet, a medical doctor, founded a human rights group and was given a 25-year jail sentence in 1999 by the Communist regime of Fidel Castro for his activities. Bush called Biscet "a great man with a mighty heart."
"For speaking the truth Dr. Biscet has endured repeated harassment, beatings, and detentions," the president said. "His example is a rebuke to the tyrants and secret police of a regime whose day is passing."
Bush also gave the award to Harper Lee, author of the classic novel "To Kill a Mocking Bird."
Among the other medal recipients was the Nobel Prize-winning University of Chicago economist Gary Becker.
"He is without question one of the most influential economists of the last hundred years," Bush said.
The President of Liberia, Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, received the honor for her role as the leader of the west African country after its bloody years of civil war -- the first female elected head of state in Africa.
The other recipients were from the United States: the genetic scientist Francis Collins, civil rights activist Benjamin Hooks, US Congressman Henry Hyde, and the public affairs broadcaster Brian Lamb.
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