After 35 Years in Prison, Puerto Rican Activist Oscar López Rivera on Freedom & Decolonization

We are joined in studio by longtime Puerto Rican independence activist Oscar Lopez Rivera, who was imprisoned for about 35 years-much of the time in solitary confinement-before President Obama commuted his sentence in January. On May 17, 2017, less than a month ago, Lopez Rivera was released. During the 1970s and 1980s, he was a leader of the pro-independence group FALN. In 1981, Lopez Rivera was convicted on federal charges including seditious conspiracy-conspiring to oppose U.S. authority over Puerto Rico by force. Lopez Rivera describes his time in prison, his youth in Chicago and how he became politicized. He also comments on Puerto Rico's current political crisis and says as long as Puerto Rican youth are "struggling and doing something for the economy, doing something for themselves, doing something for Puerto Rico, there is hope." We also speak with Juan Cartagena, president and general counsel of LatinoJustice, who was part of the campaign to free Lopez Rivera.