Urgent Support Oscar Lopez Rivera!

The ProLibertad Freedom Campaign is calling on all our allies and
supporters to join the NBHRN campaign to Call and fax the US Parole
Commission and demand that Puerto Rican Political Prisoner Oscar Lopez
Rivera be granted parole!

Parole Board Phone call-in script

Every Wednesday, starting January 19, from 9-5 EST until further
notice

US Parole Board phone:  (301) 492-5990


Hi, my name is ______________  and I live in
Chicago [NY, etc.]

The Parole Commission should parole Oscar López # 87651-024 immediately,
in spite of the hearing examiner’s recommendation to deny
parole.


IF YOU HAVE TIME, USE ONE OF THE FOLLOWING REASONS:

1) Oscar has the support of a broad sector of Puerto Rico’s civil society
as well as Puerto Rican and Latino communities throughout the United
States.

2) Oscar was not accused or convicted of causing injury or taking a life.
He was never accused or convicted of participating in the 1975 Fraunces
Tavern bombing or any other action that resulted in injury that resulted
in injury or death.

3) President Clinton’s determination that Mr. López Rivera’s sentence was
disproportionately lengthy, and his offer that would have resulted in Mr.
López Rivera’s release in September of 2009.


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Freedom for Oscar, Now!

Editorial, Claridad

January 13, 2011

“I don’t see how they can justify another 12 years of prison after he has
spent practically 30 years in prison, and the others who were charged
with the same conduct are already in the free community. It seems to me
to be excessive punishment.”

These words of the resident commissioner of Puerto Rico in Washington,
Pedro Pierluisi, dramatize the flagrant injustice embodied in the
decision of hearing examiner Mark Tanner, who was assigned to evaluate
the request for parole filed by Puerto Rican political prisoner Oscar
López Rivera, and who decided to recommend to the U.S. Parole Commission
that he be kept in prison for at least 12 more years.

This examiner practically turned the Puerto Rican patriot’s parole
hearing into a new trial and a political circus, denying him the
opportunity already enjoyed by his companeros who were in prison for the
same charges.

The Parole Commission is not obligated to adopt the hearing examiner’s
recommendation. Its members can decide that Oscar López has already been
sufficiently punished and order his release, which requires that our
nation make itself forcefully heard, demanding the release of our
compatriot.

No one with a minimal sensitivity and good judgment could doubt that
Oscar López Rivera ­ same as the former Nationalist prisoners and the
other already released Puerto Rican political prisoners ­ is someone who
struggles conscientiously, whose life and actions reflect his commitment
to a cause that he believes to be superior to himself: the struggle for
the freedom of his people. In addition, Oscar is a fine person whose
integration into Puerto Rican society will be positive, just as it has
been for the other ex political prisoners. Thus, the long battle our
nation has waged to win their release ­ lasting from the second half of
the 20th century through today ­ has attracted the solidarity
of thousands of people in Puerto Rico and throughout the world.

The Puerto Rican members of the United States Congress ­ José Serrano,
Nydia Velázquez and Luis Gutiérrez ­ who have for a long time been the
standard bearers of this cause, are now joined by the Resident
Commissioner Pedro Pierluisi, in an act of sensitivity and human
solidarity worthy of praise. In the past, Puerto Rican politicians and
leaders of every tendency and every front have joined this great effort,
just as now the mayor of the town of San Sebastián, Javier Jiménez Pérez,
has valiantly done.

It is now our turn, the turn of all Puerto Ricans of good will, to
redouble efforts to win the immediate release of Oscar López, supporting
every step carried out so that the Parole Commission rejects the hearing
examiner’s recommendation and grants Oscar parole, just as it did
recently to Carlos Alberto Torres. Our nation must be ready, just as we
have been before, to make this happen, in every way possible, going even
so far as to the U.S. president Barack Obama, if that becomes necessary.

The pages of CLARIDAD have been open ­ always and unconditionally ­ to
the demand for the release of our patriots, a task which we continue to
be ready to do, until we accomplish the urgent objective of bringing
Oscar López Rivera home free ­ and the same applies to Avelino González
Claudio, who is also in prison for the cause of the independence of
Puerto Rico ­ to receive the embrace and the solidarity of their people.