Chicago, IL – Prominent Argentinian Nobel Peace Prize laureate Adolfo Perez Esquivel and 43 other human rights activists from 18 countries have written to President Donald Trump asking him to free Colombian revolutionary Simon Trinidad.

Perez Esquivel, a writer and painter, won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1980 for his opposition to the Argentinian military dictatorship (1976-83), which tortured him and held him without trial for 14 months.

Simon Trinidad, a Colombian citizen and a peace negotiator for the FARC, has served 17 years at the supermax prison in Florence, Colorado where he is unable to receive visitors or mail. He celebrated his 70th birthday this past July.

The letter asks President Trump to pardon or commute Trinidad’s 60-year sentence, stating that it took U.S. prosecutors four trials and three hung juries to convict him. The letter goes on to say, “Freeing Trinidad and allowing him to return to Colombia, would advance the peace process.”

The letter finishes by saying that releasing Trinidad “would be a real gesture of peace” which “most all the people of Latin America would applaud.”

The National Committee to Free Simon Trinidad has posted the full text of the letter on its website here and here on Facebook.

The committee is asking everyone to telephone the Pardon Attorney’s Office at the Justice Department at 202-616-6070 ext. 4 on Thursday January 14, saying, “Free Simon Trinidad.”

Contact for more info: [email protected] or www.freesimontrinidad.org

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