Vol. 76/No. 46      December 17, 2012

As part of increasing the pressure, a delegation of elected officials, including New York state Sen. Gustavo Rivera, New York state Assemblyman José Rivera, New York City Council member Melissa Mark Viverito and U.S. Congressman Luis Gutiérrez from Illinois had planned to visit López at the federal prison in Terre Haute, Ind., Dec. 2.

But prison officials denied permission to all but Gutiérrez, National Boricua Human Rights Network spokesperson Alejandro Molina told the Militant, claiming the request was made too late and the officials were not on López’s list of 10 permitted visitors.

López was born in San Sebastián, Puerto Rico, and grew up in the U.S. He participated in struggles in the Puerto Rican community in Chicago and helped form the Committee for the Freedom of the Five Puerto Rican nationalist prisoners, jailed in 1954 after carrying out an armed pro-independence demonstration in the U.S. Congress.

In 1981 López was arrested, accused of being a member of the Armed Forces for Puerto Rican Liberation and convicted on frame-up charges of “seditious conspiracy.” He was sentenced to 55 years in prison. In 1988, 15 more years were added to his sentence on trumped-up charges of conspiring to escape.

“For 12 years starting in 1985, my father was kept in isolation,” his daughter Clarisa López, who attended the event here, told the Militant. “He was kept in his cell 23 hours a day for 12 years. All our visits took place separated by a glass partition.”

“Oscar has never been convicted or accused of carrying out any act that resulted in injury” or physical harm to anyone, noted Héctor Figueroa, president of building service workers union 32BJ SEIU, in a statement read to the press conference.

“Oscar has no regrets” on his activities in support of the struggle of the Puerto Rican people, Gutiérrez told the meeting. The congressman said that they would reapply for the other elected officials to be able to make the prison visit.

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

After Torres was released in July 2010, López applied for parole, but was denied. His current release date is set for 2023.

Write Oscar López Rivera in prison: #87651-024, FCI Terre Haute, PO Box 33, Terre Haute, IN 47808.  
 
 
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