Puerto Rico: march for political prisoners

Puerto Rico: march for political prisoners
Submitted by WW4 Report on Wed, 10/25/2006 - 17:22.

Thousands of people marched in San Juan, Puerto Rico on Oct. 8 to demand the
release of four Puerto Rican political prisoners being held in US jails.
Oscar Lopez Rivera, Carlos Alberto Torres and Haydee Beltran Torres have
been jailed for over 25 years; they were arrested in the early 1980s for
alleged involvement in the Armed Forces of National Liberation (FALN), a
pro-independence group. Lopez Rivera, Torres and Beltran are serving stiff
sentences for "seditious conspiracy" and other charges: 55 years, 78 years
and life in prison, respectively. Jose Perez Gonzalez is serving a five-year
sentence for acts of vandalism during the May 1, 2003 celebration marking
the US Navy's departure from the Puerto Rican island of Vieques.

The three-mile march from the Miramar neighborhood to Old San Juan was led
by a number of former political prisoners, including Lolita Lebron, Rafael
Cancel Miranda, Elizam Escobar, Carmen Valentin, Edwin Cortes, Ricardo
Jimenez, Adolfo Matos and sisters Alicia and Lucy Rodriguez. Lebron and
Cancel Miranda were jailed for a 1954 attack on the US Congress but were
freed in 1979 by then-US president Jimmy Carter. The other seven were among
11 prisoners released after being granted leniency in 1999 by then-president
Bill Clinton. Attending the march as a special guest was Nora Cortinas of
Argentina, co-founder of Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo. (El Nuevo Herald,
Miami, Oct. 9 from AP; Pro-Libertad website)

From Weekly News Update on the Americas, Oct. 22