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Event
A Pre-Puerto Rican Parade Dance to benefit the National Boricua Human Rights Network
Its time to work up a sweat with a fundraiser for the Campaign to Free Oscar López Rivera!
This high-energy fundraiser promises to be a great time as all who support freedom for Oscar López Rivera come out to show off their dance moves as everyone gets into the spirit of the National Puerto Rican Parade. Dinner is included.
Oscar López Rivera, a decorated Vietnam War veteran and respected community activist, is one of the longest-held political prisoners in the world.
In 1981, López Rivera was convicted in the United States, in truly Orwellian fashion, of the thought crime of "seditious conspiracy," despite never having been accused of causing harm to anyone, let alone taking a life. Having been deemed dangerous by the US government, López Rivera was imprisoned. His release date, without a presidential pardon, will be 2027, when he is 84 years old. May 29, 2016, is the 35th anniversary of his arrest.
In the late 1970s, López Rivera was a well-respected community activist and an independence leader for many years, having helped create both the Puerto Rican High School and the Puerto Rican Cultural Center in Chicago. He was also involved in the struggle for bilingual education in public schools and to force universities to actively recruit Latino students, staff and faculty as well as community struggle for housing, healthcare and other issues.
Twelve and a half years of López Rivera's imprisonment have taken place in solitary confinement, including within supermax prisons. López Rivera has been routinely held in conditions not unlike those at the military prison at Guantánamo Bay - conditions which the International Red Cross has called "tantamount to torture."
National and international organizations calling for López Rivera's release include the Parliamentary Confederation of the Americas, the Permanent Conference of Political Parties of Latin America and the Caribbean, the Coalition of Latin American and Caribbean Men and Women Religious, Nobel Peace Prize laureates, the American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations (AFL-CIO), the Service Employees International Union executive bureau (SEIU), American Federation of State, Councils, and Municipal Employees (AFSCME), the World Federation of Trade Unions and the Region of the Americas.
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LocationDr. Martin Luther King Jr. Labor Center (View)
310 West 43 Street/8th Avenue
New York, NY 10036
United States
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