While today many remain attentive to the debt ceiling theater that is taking place in Congress, in 1936, Puerto Rican nationalists Pedro Albizu Campos, Juan Antonio Corretjer, Clemente Soto Vélez and others were sentenced to six to 10 years in federal prison for for “seditious conspiracy to overthrow the U.S. Government in Puerto Rico.”. This sentence is the result of a second trial against the leaders, ordered because the first trial, where the jury was majority Puerto Rican, found the nationalists innocent.

It is important to note that earlier that year, in the Masacre of Rio Piedras four Nationalists are killed by the Policia Insular de Puerto Rico. The Nationalists avenge the Masacre de Rio Piedras. Hiram Rosado and Elias Beauchamp kill Chief of Police E. Francis Riggs. They are caught and killed in the police headquarters of Old San Juan.

It is important to note that the same charges that imprisoned leaders like Albizu Campos continue to be used against current Puerto Rican political prisoners.

Sources : ProLibertad, PR Dream