What Democracy? Questioning Oscar López Rivera’s Imprisonment in the United States  · Global Voices
Ángel Carrión

Puerto Rico's most widely circulated newspaper, El Nuevo Día, published an editorial [es] in its Sunday edition on June 1, 2014 in which it questions the moral standard of the United States’ government to intercede in favor of political prisoners around the world while insisting on unjustly maintaining Puerto Rican political prisoner Oscar López Rivera [es] incarcerated:
Habría que preguntarse cuál es el empecinamiento de un gobierno, el de Estados Unidos, que presume de sus acciones en favor de los presos politicos del mundo entero -en Ucrania, con Yulia Timoshenko; en China, con el artista Ai Weiwei; en Venezuela, con el opositor Leopoldo López; en Cuba, con el exprisionero Guillermo Fariñas, y hasta en Rusia con el grupo feminista punk “Pussy Riot”, – pero que en su propia casa mantiene sepultado a un puertorriqueño que, de 1986 a 1998, sufrió uno de los regímenes carcelarios más crueles que existen, el de confinamiento en solitaria en la prisión de Marion, Illinois.
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El gobierno de Estados Unidos está moralmente impedido de interceder por ningún preso político, en ningún lugar del mundo, mientras continúe el presidente burlándose de la memoria de [Nelson] Mandela y violando los derechos civiles, políticos y el derecho a la libertad de Oscar.
We should ask ourselves about the stubbornness of a government, that of the United States, which boasts of its actions in favor of political prisoners around the entire world – in Ukraine with Yulia Timoshenko, in China with artist Ai Weiwei, in Venezuela with political candidate Leopoldo López, in Cuba with former prisoner Guillermo Fariñas, and even in Russia with feminist punk group “Pussy Riot” – but keeps a Puerto Rican who suffered one of the cruelest prison regimes that ever existed, from 1986 to 1998 in solitary confinement in a prison in Marion, Illinois.
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The government of the United States is morally unable to advocate for any political prisoner anywhere in the world while the President continues to mock the memory of [Nelson] Mandela and violates Oscar's right to freedom as well as his civil and political rights.