The Freedom Album

The Project

The Welfare Poets, Boricuation and other concerned organizations and individuals have come together to collaborate on a fund raising project to directly aid the current Puerto Rican Political Prisoners and Prisoners of War, incarcerated for fighting for the independence and self-determination of Puerto Rico. The Freedom Album will be a musical CD/compilation dedicated to the welfare of our political prisoners. We have united under the name The Puerto Rican Freedom Project Committee. Additionally, we also want this album to assist past Political Prisoners and Prisoners of War who have been freed and are now attempting to survive in a system where many channels have been closed to them, and even possibly aid future Political Prisoners and Prisoners of War.

The Puerto Rican Freedom Project Committee has begun mailing Puerto Rican artists of all genres across the U.S., on the island and elsewhere to let them know about the project and to initiate the process of song submission. Our desire is to get a wide range of Puerto Rican artists from the local grass-rooted bands to those who are mainstream and have the eye of the world press. Our goal is to have the compilation completed by the end of Summer 2008. We are also in the process of contacting other Puerto Rican organizations and cultural institutions to assist in sponsoring and implementing the proposed project.

Goals of the Project

- We hope this album serves to raise the necessary funds as outlined above.
- We hope this album serves as a base to educate the public about our compañeros existence and individual cases.
- We want to offer the public an additional way to directly assist the effort to aid and free the Puerto Rican Political Prisoners and Prisoners of War.
- In addition to selling this album on line through various websites and locally throughout the states and island in Puerto Rican communities, we hope this album is picked up and distributed on an international level, expanding its overall reach.
- Finally, we also hope to unify the Puerto Rican community on many levels by bringing Puerto Rican artists and organizations from Puerto Rico, NYC, Chicago, California, Philadelphia, New Jersey and all over the Puerto Rican Diaspora together in an effort of supporting those who have sacrificed everything for the love of our island's freedom.

Background

The fight for Puerto Rico's Independence goes as far back as indigenous resistance to Spanish occupation. For well over 500 years, countless and nameless individuals have fought for our islands sovereignty. Some have paid the ultimate price with their lives. Others have been held captive, arrested against their will, by a court that held no jurisdiction over their cases and trampled on their international right to fight for the liberation of their homeland, our homeland, Puerto Rico. The Puerto Rican people have been able to free many of our Political Prisoners. We did so because we created unity amongst ourselves and because we welcomed the solidarity of all our allies. This Freedom Album is another example of our creativity in building solidarity and unity amongst ourselves.

This album will educate, agitate and help further build our movement to free our compañeros behind the walls. Our compañeros are Oscar Lopez Rivera, Carlos Alberto Torres, Haydee Beltran Torres and Jose Perez Gonzalez.

For more information

INFORMATION ABOUT THE PUERTO RICAN POLITICAL PRISONERS

He was active in various community struggles, mainly in the area of health care, employment and police brutality.  He also participated in the development of the Committee to Free the Five Puerto Rican Nationalists.  In 1975, he was forced underground, along with other comrades.  He as captured on May 29, 1981, after 5 years of being persecuted by the FBI as on of the most feared fugitives from US “justice.”

Oscar, who has a daughter named Clarissa, is currently serving a 55-year sentence for seditious conspiracy and other charges. He was convicted of conspiracy to escape along with Jaime Delgado (a veteran independence leader), Dora Garcia (a prominent community activist) and Kojo Bomani-Sababu, a New Afrikan political prisoner.

Oscar was one of 12 Puerto Rican political prisoners offered some form of leniency by the Clinton Administration in the fall of 1999.   According to the Chicago Sun Times, he “declined the president’s offer, which still would have left him 10 years to serve on conspiracy to escape charges.  Now he faces at least 20 more years in prison.  His sister, Zenaida Lopez, said he turned the offer down because he would be on parole. “Accepting what they are offering him is like prison outside of prison,” she said.  Zenaida Lopez said her brother “was in total agreement with the decision of the 11 others to take the conditional clemency.”  Oscar is presently in prison Terre Haute, Indiana and his release date is 7/27/27.

Oscar López Rivera
#87651-024 FCI Terre Haute
Box 12015
Terre Haute, IN 47808

In 1976, Carlos was forced to go underground and was on the FBI’s most wanted list.  He was captured along with other comrades and sentenced to 78 years on charges of seditious conspiracy, among other charges.

Although the Clinton Administration offered clemency to 12 Puerto Rican political prisoners in the fall of 1999, no leniency was granted to Carlos Torres, who prosecutors described as a leader of the Fuerza Armadas de Liberacion Nacional (FALN), an underground organization which fought for Puerto Rico’s independence in the 1970’s and 80’s.  His release date is 2024.  He is currently in prison in Oxford, Wisconsin.

Carlos Alberto Torres
#88976-024
Federal Correction Institute
PO BOX 5000
Pekin, Illinois 61555-5000

Haydee was forced underground in 1976 and was captured April 4, 1989.  She has been sentenced to life in prison on charges including seditious conspiracy.  Haydee was the first POW to receive a life sentence.  She was kept in total isolation from the other prisoners of war and was transferred to a special control unit, which limited visits.  It was a years before she was allowed to see her family.

At the MCC in Chicago, she was classified as “no visitors allowed.”  Haydee was subject to physical abuse in interrogations for refusing to implicate her comrades in unfounded crimes.  This was done several times by FBI and other government agents.  These and other inhumane acts by the US government have led to serious injuries, which prison medical directors have misdiagnosed; also, Haydee has received injections of unknown medications.

Haydee Beltrán
#88462-024
SCI Tallahassee
501 Capital Circle NE 
Tallahassee, FL 32301

Avelino González Claudio

The PR Freedom Committee denounces this LATEST ATTACK on the Puerto Rican Independence Movement. Since the assassination of Filiberto Ojeda Rios in 2005, the FBI in Puerto Rico has harassed and assaulted various pro-Puerto Rican Independence activists in their witch hunt against Los Macheteros; a clandestine revolutionary independence organization Filiberto Ojeda Rios led.
In the past few months, LUIS FRATICELLI, the director of the FBI in Puerto Rico, has intensified these acts of repression by issuing Grand Jury subpoenas to three young Puerto Rican Activists in New York and Puerto Rico. On Thursday February 7 th 2008, the FBI in Puerto Rico arrested Avelino Gonzalez Claudio, anti-colonial combatant and Machetero, for his participation in the Wells Fargo Incident in the 1980s.

Avelino González Claudio
#357422
Unit 1 West Cell 213
PO Box 665
Somers, CT 06071

UPDATE: On January 18th, Vieques Political Prisoner Jose Perez Gonzalez finished his prison sentence and is now free!! We welcome José and shares his joy in once again sharing the warmth that comes from walking among our people and the pride we all feel for his heroic service.