The fight to free Puerto Rican political prisoner Oscar López Rivera, 71, is gaining support. López has been jailed in the United States since 1981 on trumped-up charges of “seditious conspiracy” because of his activities in support of independence for Puerto Rico, a U.S. colony.

Starting April 27, supporters of López marched through 33 small towns in Puerto Rico — representing each year he has been in jail — ending with a demonstration in front of the U.S. Courthouse in San Juan May 29, the anniversary of his arrest. Hundreds greeted a “To the sea for Oscar López” flotilla of kayaks, paddle boards and small boats at San Juan Harbor (above), May 25. The action was organized in response to a letter to his granddaughter Karina Valentín, where he wrote that “after my family, what I miss the most is the sea.”

“Now that you’ve spent 33 years in prison, was it worth it?” López was asked in a phone interview printed May 29 in the San Juan daily El Nuevo Día.

“While there is still a single person in an occupied nation willing to fight, there is still hope that Puerto Rico will be free,” he said. “Loving our homeland costs nothing; losing it would come at a great cost.”