Introduction Movements Eras Organizations Index Contributions
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
OSCAR LóPEZ RIVERA’S IMPRISONMENT
Oscar López Rivera’s Imprisonment

Oscar López Rivera, a Chicago community organizer and Vietnam veteran, was arrested in 1981 and convicted of seditious conspiracy for his role in the FALN. Sentenced to 55 years — with additional time added later — he became the best-known and longest-held of the Puerto Rican independence prisoners.

Over more than three decades his case became an international cause, drawing support from across the Puerto Rican political spectrum, Nobel laureates, and religious leaders. In January 2017 President Barack Obama commuted his sentence, and he was released that May, greeted as a hero on his return to Puerto Rico.