Vol. 76/No. 19      May 14, 2012

“If you’re old enough to remember the plight of Nelson Mandela, if you’ve known anyone who’s suffered any human rights abuse, if police beatings have caused you to question what’s going on, you should feel the same indignation for what’s going on with Oscar,” former Puerto Rican political prisoner Luis Rosa told the Militant in an April 28 phone interview from Orlando, Fla.

Rosa was in Orlando to garner support for the campaign to free López. He spoke to a meeting of 40 people there April 26 and was interviewed by several local radio stations as part of the tour.

“To mark Oscar’s 31 years in jail, concerts, creation of murals and exhibits of Oscar’s paintings will take place in more than 31 cities in Puerto Rico this year,” Rosa said.

In Chicago, “31 days for 31 years” was launched April 28. During that period supporters of López will take turns spending a day in a symbolic storefront jail cell in Chicago’s predominantly Puerto Rican neighborhood of Humboldt Park to bring attention to the case.

Born in San Sebastián, Puerto Rico, López grew up in the U.S. He was drafted into the Army and was an infantryman in Vietnam in 1965-66. Afterward he returned to Chicago and participated in social struggles. He helped form the Committee for the Freedom of the Five Puerto Rican nationalist prisoners, who were jailed in 1954 after carrying out an armed pro-independence demonstration in the U.S. Congress.

López was arrested May 28, 1981, accused of being a member of the Armed Forces for Puerto Rican Liberation (FALN) and convicted on trumped-up charges of “seditious conspiracy.” He was sentenced to 55 years in prison.

In 1988, 15 more years were added to his sentence after he was framed up and convicted of attempting to escape.

In 1999, López was offered parole along with 13 other Puerto Rican political prisoners by then-President William Clinton. He refused, in large part because two prisoners, Carlos Alberto Torres and Haydée Beltrán, were not included. If López had accepted, he would have been released in 2009.

After Torres was released in July 2010, López applied for parole. At a January 2011 hearing, the parole commission allowed testimony from a family member of a person killed in a 1975 bombing in New York that the U.S. governments attributes to the FALN, even though López was never charged with this. The parole commission ruled that López could not reapply for parole until 2026, when he will be 83 years old.

More information on the fight to free López and two other Puerto Rican political prisoners—Avelino González Claudio and Norberto González Claudio—is available online at: boricuahumanrights.org, libertadparaoscar.org and prolibertadweb.com.

Write Oscar López Rivera in prison: #87651-024, FCI Terre Haute, PO Box 33, Terre Haute, IN 47808.  
 
 
Front page (for this issue) | Home | Text-version home