An Afro-Cuban dissident who spent time in Fidel Castro’s gulags, Oscar Biscet is one of many who represent the real Cuba, the people hidden from sight as President Obama visits this week.

While the president basks in the Cuban sun and photo-ops with its dictator, the fate and freedom of political resisters like Mr Biscet is grim. He is free now in technical terms, but in reality, remains among a cohort of dissenters who still live in an invisible prison: a society under a totalitarian regime. Mr Obama will provide that regime with dangerously unwarranted legitimacy by his diplomatic visit.

Mr Biscet and I were convicted of the same crime: fidelity to our consciences. Mr Biscet, a doctor, blew the whistle on corruption and abuse in Cuba’s healthcare system. The government called it “disrespect”. My crime was in refusing to put a simple sign on my desk that said, “I’m with Fidel”.

He and I and countless others who refused to go along with the Castro regime’s flagrant human rights violations were sentenced to decades in jail, where the government showed no restraint in trying to break us into submission.

And while both of us are technically free men now, Mr Biscet and others like him in Cuba go about their lives bearing the invisible shackles of a government that tolerates not a word of protest.

The entire island lives garroted by these unseen chains. And despite glossy magazine ads inviting travellers to come for the mojitos and pristine beaches, and cheerful state visits from the likes of John Kerry and Mr Obama, nothing has changed.

Rather, as countless organisations have attested, human rights abuses have only escalated, and Cuba is in violation of basic stipulations in its diplomatic agreement with the United States by refusing to allow workers from the Red Cross and United Nations to come and lift the palm-studded hood and take a look.

Armando Valladares is a poet and artist who spent 22 years as a political prisoner in Cuba

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