Fight Back News Service is circulating the following statement from the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP).

The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, on behalf of its imprisoned General Secretary Ahmad Sa’adat and all of its prisoners in the occupation prisons and its cadres and members in Palestine and exile, saluted Oscar Lopez Rivera on his liberation after nearly 36 years in Israeli prisons.

The longtime struggler, comrade Lopez Rivera was arrested in 1980 for his involvement in the revolutionary independence movement of Puerto Rico, which is colonized until today by the United States. A U.S. court sentenced him to 55 years for “seditious conspiracy” for his political and revolutionary activities, to which another 15 years was later added over an alleged attempt to escape from prison.

In 1999, he was offered a significant sentence reduction by then-President Bill Clinton, conditioned on his agreement to “condemn violence” of all kinds, but he rejected this attempt and was dedicated to stand firmly by his political positions. Following a widespread popular campaign in Puerto Rico and the United States, Lopez Rivera received clemency from then-President Barack Obama before leaving office; he was then subject to house arrest for three months.

After his house arrest ended on May 17, he was welcomed by a mass rally in Chicago where he was greeted by the Puerto Rican community, the Palestinian community and a wide range of organizations, and was welcomed by former Palestinian prisoner, longtime struggler and community leader Rasmea Odeh.

The struggler Lopez Rivera continued to hold fast to his revolutionary positions and showed his solidarity with the Palestinian people and movement, including the Palestinian political prisoners currently on hunger strike.

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