We are currently working with hundreds of churches, organizations, & political representatives for the release of Oscar López Rivera. The Press Conference will take place on Thursday, April 26, 2012 at 6:30pm at the Southeast Branch Library, 5575 S. Semoran Blvd, Orlando, FL. For more info, contact Rosario Martínez, 407-486-4017 or rosariom@boricuahumanrights.org

The National Boricua Human Rights Network (NBHRN), Batey Urbano and Latin@ Coalition are about to commence “31 Days for 31 Years” in which 31 activists and community residents will spend 24 hours each in a makeshift storefront cell with guard, for a total of 31 days. The exhibit, starting April 29th, also features an exhibition of Oscar’s artwork (he is a prolific painter) as well as literature and posters from the campaign to free Puerto Rican political prisoners for the past 30 years and a wall of Oscar’s letters to his supporters as well as a station where people may write to Oscar, in the Batey Urbano, located at 2620 West Division St. Chicago, IL 60622. Batey Urbano is in the heart of “Paseo Boricua” in Chicago’s Humboldt Park Neighborhood.

The purpose of this is to call attention to the continued unjust incarceration of Oscar López Rivera. The ambitious joint effort of the Latin@ Coalition, Batey Urbano and NBHRN will culminate in a major event commemorating his arrest and 31 years of imprisonment on Tuesday, May 29.

Oscar, a decorated Vietnam veteran, has been imprisoned since his arrest on May 29, 1981. Subsequently, he was charged and convicted for seditious conspiracy and minor arms charges and sentenced to 55 years. The other Puerto Rican political prisoners of his generation, arrested in 1980 and 1983 and also convicted of seditious conspiracy, were released in 1999 by President Clinton, due to mass international and domestic pressure. Oscar rejected the offer at that time because 2 others, Carlos Alberto Torres and Haydee Beltrán, were not included. Both of them have since been freed on parole.

Activist and community members and other supporters will gather this Saturday April 28, 2012 at 7:30 am in front of Batey Urbano as the first “prisoner”, activist and co-coordinator of the Network, Alejandro Luis Molina enters the cell beginning the 31 day event. We will again gather at Batey Urbano for a press conference on May 29, 2012 at 5:30 pm.

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Download the custom poster here.
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For more information or to schedule an interview with a representative from one of the sponsoring organizations please contact Laura Ruth Johnson (773) 505-2490 or
laurarj@boricuahumanrights.org

from Juan Santiago

In another grand heroic deed of the youth-students at the UPR, they started working on this mural on Friday December 23, 2011, working from 8:00 a.m. to 7:00 p.m. They continued on Christmas Eve, Saturday the 24th of December at 9:00 a.m. They worked intensely that day. It was obvious that they wanted to finish the Mural, and that it would be a Christmas present for Oscar. Midnight came, and the work was well advanced. It was Christmas. The brigade kept working. They found spotlights to light their work. It rained on them. They put up a tent. The police kept passing by on their typical rounds and saw with strange reverence how beautiful the Mural was. They worked on the details of the Mural. With dawn they continued on their course, with no sign of surrender or exhaustion. This photo was taken at 4:30 a.m. The brigade was led by the artist Abdiel Arenas, Abderaman, Cesar, Manuel, Carlos, and others whose names I don’t know. Their finished their patriotic marathon right on Christmas. It was dawn and you could hear the mist of nature that Oscar so longs for. Christmas happily sang “Justice-Freedom- Solidarity” for the political prisoner whose only purported crime was to love his homeland. This is proof of the ancestry and strength of the new generation taking on the struggle, and how they are inspired by Oscar López Rivera’s life and heroic deeds. Long live free Puerto Rico! Long live Oscar López Rivera! How welcome the Redeeming Christmas will be!

The family, including his brother José López, Democratic congressman
from Illinois Luis V. Gutiérrez, and René Pérez, member of the
renowned group Calle 13, are expected to attend the activity honoring
the flag and López Rivera. A statue of the illustrious Ramón Emeterio
Betances will be unveiled.

Claridad will livestream the activity at www.claridadpuertorico.com.

The occasion represents an appeal to the attention and conscience of
all Puerto Ricans to renew their patriotic commitment to struggle for
the freedom of this Puerto Rican brother who this year marked the 30th
anniversary of his cruel and unjust imprisonment.

The dedication of the activity also takes place almost a year after
the awful January 5, 2011 denial of López Rivera’s parole by the
Parole Commission of the United States Department of Justice. As
denounced at the time of the proceedings conducted by Mark Tarnner
[sic], it was arbitrary and contaminated.

“Mr. Tarnner [sic] brought with him an FBI agent and five people who
were supposedly my victims. Four of the five made long statements that
could only be described as diatribes full of hate and poison they used
to compare me to Hitler and Bin Laden,” López Rivera said of the
hearing in a letter sent to the Puerto Rican people in March of this
year. “When it was time for my lawyer Jan Susler and I to speak, Mr.
Tarnner [sic] took on the role of conducting a grand inquisition. His
voice became sarcastic and he never paid attention to what we were
saying. After almost three hours, the hearing ended and he handed down
his recommendation that the Commission see me after I served another
15 years,” he added.

The Parole Commission also wouldn’t allow attorney Eduardo Villanueva
Muñoz, spokesperson for the Human Rights Committee, to attend the
hearing. As Villanueva Muñoz has stated, the 70 year sentence handed
down to this son of San Sebastián is the same as a living death
sentence. López Rivera is already 68 years old, 10 [sic] more years in
prison, as Tarnner [sic] sarcastically said, would keep him behind
bars until he is 83 year old. Of the 30 years he’s been in prison, the
first [sic] 12 were in total isolation.

As compañero attorney Juan Santiago Nieves has said about Puerto Rican
political prisoners Oscar López and brothers Avelino and Norberto
González Claudio: “The political prisoners represent our best human
beings and comprise the highest consciousness of struggle and
denunciation of the colonial regime. Defending and honoring them is
our urgent task.”

Additionally, activists will also be hiring a plane to fly over the Ateneo for 2 hours with a 7-ft tall banner proclaiming (in Spanish): “Oscar López Rivera: Freedom Now” followed by a giant Puerto Rican flag (image below). For more information on the event contact Edwin Cortés at: libertad44@choicecable.net

Life is a learning process – we never stop learning unless we choose to. We learn by doing things and by the mistakes we make in the process. Every problem created by the human animal has a solution, even the ones that seem insurmountable. When we tackle a problem and we fail we must try again and again until we find a solution. If a single one can’t do it by himself or herself then he or she should seek help. It might take a few individuals or a community or a whole nation to find a solution. What’s important is never to give up no matter the trials and tribulations that it takes. The impossible is that that doesn’t get done.

I’ll use Dr. Pedro Albizu Campos High School as an example. When the idea of starting an alternative school for Puerto Rican students was being discussed the nay sayers would say that it was an impossible objective. We had no money, no materials, no physical facility and no experience. But those obstacles and challenges didn’t deter us from going ahead with the experiment. A Puerto Rican minister, the Rev. Jose Hernández, told us we could use his church. Different people, young and old committed themselves to be teachers or tutors. We scrounged and got some basic materials (even using what others considered obsolete objects) and got St. Mary’s HS (an all girl Catholic school) to share its accreditation with what became the Puerto Rican HS. After the first year, Rev. Hernández told us we had to move from his church. We purchased a burn out building and had fixed it to house the school. But some of the neighbors got together and decided not to allow us to use the building for the school. So we had to approach St. Aloysius and rent their school building. In order to raise the needed money we even washed cars. Eventually a building was purchased and the school – by that time known as the Rafael Miranda HS- finally had its own place.

Much of the work was done through trial and error. At times we got rid of teachers and students in order to keep the school going. We faced ideological differences and differences over the school’s goals. We did what we thought needed to be done and the school survived. It even survived attacks by forces that didn’t want the school to succeed.

I take this opportunity, also, to congratulate and thank the staff and the other hard workers who make the school a reality and dare to make it better. And i would like to thank and congratulate the rest of the students who have chosen to attend PACHS. Without you there would be no reason for the school to exist. Study hard and learn as much as possible. Stay in school, think critically and become a problem solver and not a problem maker. Fill your hearts with love and compassion and never turn your backs on an injustice. A better and more just world is possible as long as we dare to struggle for it. Life is all a struggle, but don’t let that stop you from enjoying the good things it offers you. Have fun and learn. En Resistencia y Lucha, OLR.

Su única hija, Clarisa López, agradeció al Asambleísta Rivera por la dedicatoria a su Padre. Clarisa se dirigió al público: “Han sido 30 años de resistencia y lucha, sueños y esperanzas. Hemos luchado por los pasados 30 años por la excarcelación de mi Padre. Pero a la vez hemos vivido por las pasadas tres décadas soñando con su regreso junto a mi hija, Karina y a mí a nuestro querido Puerto Rico. Vivimos con la esperanza de que nos pueda acompañar y compartir tiempo y espacio con nosotras. Les exhorto a que se unan a nosotras al esfuerzo recolección de firmas para las cartas de solicitud de petición de perdón presidencial dirigida al Presidente de EU Barack Obama. A la salida se encuentran las cartas, sólo tienen que firmarlas y se estarán uniendo al esfuerzo de que mi sueño de tener a mi lado a mi Padre, Oscar López Rivera se convierta en realidad.” Acto seguido El Jibaro entono la canción Mi viejo.