About Organizations
Black Panther Party
Black Liberation Army
American Indian Movement
FALN
Weather Underground
Earth Liberation Front
Animal Liberation Front
MOVE
Republic of New Afrika
Symbionese Liberation Army
Los Macheteros
United Freedom Front
May 19th Communist Organization
Young Lords
George Jackson Brigade
Students for a Democratic Society
Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee
Industrial Workers of the World
Communist Party USA
Puerto Rican Nationalist Party
Brown Berets
Socialist Workers Party
African People's Socialist Party
Nation of Islam
About FALN
First FALN Bombing Wave
Fraunces Tavern Bombing
The Mainland Bombing Campaign
Cook County Building Bombing
William Morales Explosion & Escape
Evanston Arrests
Seditious-Conspiracy Convictions
Oscar López Rivera’s Imprisonment
Clinton Clemency Controversy
Continuing Political-Prisoner Campaigns
SEDITIOUS-CONSPIRACY CONVICTIONS
In the early 1980s, following the Evanston arrests, several FALN members were tried in federal court and convicted of seditious conspiracy — conspiring to oppose U.S. authority over Puerto Rico by force — along with weapons and other charges. Many received sentences of decades, far longer than those typical for the underlying offenses.
The use of the rarely-invoked seditious-conspiracy statute, and the length of the sentences, became central to the argument that the FALN prisoners were being punished for their political beliefs and their commitment to independence. Their cases joined the long lineage of Puerto Rican nationalists imprisoned under the same charge, stretching back to Pedro Albizu Campos in the 1930s.