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- Newsgroups: misc.activism.progressive
- Path: sparky!uunet!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!wupost!mont!pencil.cs.missouri.edu!rich
- From: rich@pencil.cs.missouri.edu (Rich Winkel)
- Subject: Puerto Rico:Political Prisoners(2)
- Message-ID: <1992Aug13.231622.20862@mont.cs.missouri.edu>
- Followup-To: alt.activism.d
- Originator: rich@pencil.cs.missouri.edu
- Sender: news@mont.cs.missouri.edu
- Nntp-Posting-Host: pencil.cs.missouri.edu
- Organization: PACH
- Date: Thu, 13 Aug 1992 23:16:22 GMT
- Approved: map@pencil.cs.missouri.edu
- Lines: 49
-
- /** reg.puertorico: 23.0 **/
- ** Topic: Puerto Rico:Political Prisoners(2) **
- ** Written 5:13 pm Aug 12, 1992 by caribdoc in cdp:reg.puertorico **
- From: Proyecto Caribeno de Justicia y Paz <caribdoc>
- Subject: Puerto Rico:Political Prisoners(2)
-
- PLACE OF IMPRISONMENT
-
- [Excerpt]
-
- Isolation from family and the pliitcal community of support has been
- a prime weapon used against these men and women. In spite of explicit
- federal regulations mandating that prisoners be placed in prisons as close
- to their homes as possible, the U.S places the Puerto Rican political
- prisoners in prisons as far away from their homes as possible.
-
- For years the United States has basically banished indepedence activists,
- taking those convicted of pro-independence activity from their country and
- forcing service of prison sentences inside the U.S., as it did with Don
- Pedro Albizu Campos and other Nationalist Party leaders, as it continued to
- do with Pablo Marcano Garcia and Nydia Cuevas, and with Angel Rodriguez
- Cristobal and his fellow Vieques protestors. The most recent example is the
- August 30, 1985 arrest in Puerto Rico of eleven activists, who were
- transported out of their country by the U.S. military before they could go
- forward on a hearing for bond scheduled to be heard in their own country,
- and who were then held in U.S. prisons, some for as long as three years,
- before beind admited to bail.
-
- Prison officials also make assignments to prison to intentionally distance
- the prisoner under sentence from their families in the U.S. Adolfo Matos,
- whose family lives in New York, is in a prison thousands of miles away in
- southern California, although there is prison only a few hours drive from
- New York, where several of his comrades are imprisoned.
-
- As a result, Adolfo sees his wife and teenage daughters infrequently. One
- of his daughters recently made the expensive trip to see her father after
- not seeing him for three years. Elizam Escobar, whose son lives in New
- York, has repeatedly requested placement in a prison near New York.
-
- Although hundreds of other prisoners have been assigned to prisons near
- New York, authorities tell Elizam they cannot accommodate his wishes because
- of "overcrowding". His son was five years old when his father was taken into
- custody and in the past eleven years has seen his father on an average of
- less than once a year.
-
- [Sussler, Jan.Condiciones de Encarcelamiento/Conditions of Incarceration,
- Ofensiva '92, Rio Piedras:Puerto Rico, p.22-23.]
-
- ** End of text from cdp:reg.puertorico **
-