Tag Archives: Universidad de Puerto Rico

ACLU Delegation in Puerto Rico Finds Serious Violations of Civil Rights

  By Maegan La Mala | May 5, 2011 - 11:35 am |
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Earlier this week a delegation from the American Civil Liberties Union, which included interestingly enough, actress Rosie Perez and baseball player Carlos Delgado, as well as the head of the ACLU, Anthony Romero, Angelo Falcon of the National Institute for Latino Policy, and Juan Cartegena of LatinoJustice PRLDEF, concluded that the civil rights violations against students and labor activists by the government was worse than originally imagined.

From El Nuevo Dia :

“The necessity of maintaining the university open and assuring access to students cannot justify the excessive use of force we saw in the videos,” pointed out the director of the ACLU, Anthony Romero, who also recognized that students violated laws and damaged state property.

“When the government unleashes the power of the police on students who were meeting peacefully in a public place, that is anti-American, contrary to Puerto Rican values, unconstitutional, and against the law,” he said.

(more…)

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ACLU Asks US DOJ to Intervene in UPR Struggle

  By Maegan La Mala | March 11, 2011 - 12:01 pm |
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Today being World Solidarity Day with the students of the UPR (find an event near you aqui), it seems fitting to report on the American Civil Liberty Union request that the U.S. Department of Justice intervene.

Yesterday the ACLU sent a letter asking for intervention in serious human rights and civil liberties abuses reported to be occurring against the people of Puerto Rico at the hands of the territory’s government. The ACLU asked that DOJ conclude its ongoing investigation of allegations of serious incidents of police violence and the suppression of free expression – including numerous reports of violent attacks against peaceful protesters and racially motivated police abuse – and take action to end these egregious practices.

(more…)

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Thursday in NYC : UPR No Se Vende! University of Puerto Rico Student Activists Panel

  By Maegan La Mala | March 7, 2011 - 8:12 am |
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STUDENTS SEEKING CULTURAL AND EDUCATIONAL EQUITY FROM THE ADMINISTRATION OF THE UNIVERSITY OF PUERTO RICO AND GOVERMENT, WILL DISCUSS THE ISSUES THAT HAVE CAUSED MASSIVE DEMONSTRATIONS SEEKING SOCIAL JUSTICE THAT HAVE CLOSED THE UNIVERSITY OF PUERTO RICO. THE REPRESSIVE STRATEGIES BY THE UNIVERSITY AND GOVERNMENT WILL ALSO BE ADDRESSED.

DATE: Thursday, March 10, 2011

TIME: 7:00PM – 9:00PM

WHERE: New York University

Silver Building, Room 703, 33 Washington Place, NYC

NOTE: PHOTO I.D. REQUIRED – ADMISSION FREE TO THE PUBLIC

LIMITED SPACE CALL TO RESERVE SEATING

(CCCADI) 212-307-7420 EXT 3000
email : Tisch.arpo@nyu.edu RSVP by March 7

Student Leaders Include:

ARTURO OTLAHU RIOS, GIOVANNI ROBERTO CAEZ, LOURDES SANTIAGO NEGRON & PEDRO MANUEL LUGO.

AN EVENT OF THE CARIBBEAN CULTURAL CENTER AFRICAN DIASPORA INSTITUTE IN COLLABORATION WITH NYU TISCH SCHOOL DEPARTMENT OF ART AND PUBLIC POLICY AND MICA (MARYLAND INSTITUTE AND COLLEGE OF FINE ART)

A University Without Walls Project

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March 11 : World Day of Solidarity with the Students of the UPR

  By Maegan La Mala | March 2, 2011 - 12:12 pm |
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March 11th, 2011 has been declared as World Day of Solidarity with the students of the University of Puerto Rico. There are events happening all over the United States and across the globe. While the U.S. gaze hasn’t really focused on the struggle of the Puerto Rican students and it’s larger implications, the world has.

Why March 11?

March 11, 1971 was one of the bloodiest single days in the history of the University of Puerto Rico. The main campus at Río Piedras was occupied by the Puerto Rico Police, unleashing violent confrontations that ended the lives of two police officers, including the then chief of the notorious Tactical Operations Unit, and one student.

Barely one year before, on March 4, 1970, during a student demonstration, student Antonia Martínez Lagares was shot dead by police. These tragedies influenced a series of decisions that helped reduce the intensity of on-campus conflicts during the following decades, including the removal of the United States’ Army Reserve Officers Training Corps (ROTC), and an institutional commitment to resolving conflicts without police intervention.

Forty years later, the UPR community, led by the students, still struggles for a democratic and accessible institution, against the abusive and exclusionary policies of the latest colonial government. Among these, aside from its clear intention to privatize higher education as much as it can, said government has laid off over 25,000 public employees, and intends to build a gasoduct across the island that will displace entire communities and impact areas of high ecological and archeological value.

In this context, the Río Piedras Campus once again lived several months of police occupation, with the open support of the government and university administrators, in reaction to the strike democratically declared by the Río Piedras General Student Assembly, rejecting an unjust and arbitrary $800 hike in the cost of studying. The eyes of the world watched as Puerto Rico Police officers tortured peaceful civil disobedients with impunity, sexually accosted and attacked women students, discriminatorily harassed student leaders, and savagely beat people, even under custody, all before the television cameras.

There can be no doubt that the recent decision by Governor Luis Fortuño to withdraw the bulk of the police force from the Río Piedras Campus is a partial victory for the students, who with their bravery and determination have raised the political cost of sustaining that level of repression way to high for the government to afford. However, now is not the time to lower the guard. It wouldn’t be the first time that the Fortuño administration temporarily curtails its use of brute force, only to return even more violently under any pretext. We are convinced that if the Puerto Rico Police is not removed immediately, completely, and permanently from all UPR campuses, it will only be a matter of time before another March 11.

In addition, we are united by the firm conviction that the demands of the UPR community are just. The strike is still in effect, and the struggle (its current phase) will continue until the $800 hike is eliminated. In the longer term, we support a real democratization of the decision-making process in the UPR, so that it is the community that determines the best way to handle the institution’s financial and administrative problems.

For all of these reasons, Friday, March 11, 2011, fortieth anniversary of that fateful March 11, will be World Day of Solidarity with the UPR. On that day we will hold, in our respective cities, simultaneous demonstrations together with individuals and organizations that support just causes. At a time when the powerful voice of the brave Egyptian people and all arab nations is still ringing around the the globe, we are confident that the people of consciousness of the world will welcome this initiative and organize their own activities of solidarity on that day.

This post will be used to compile events for that day so that those who wish to support can. It will be updated regularly.

New York City

Friday, March 11 · 6:30pm – 9:00pm
Julia de Burgos’s Mosaic
106 St, Spanish Harlem
NYC
(Note : Mala will be at this event covering it for VivirLatino)

San Francisco

Friday, March 11, 4:30-7:00pm
24th/Mission BART Station Plaza in San Francisco

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More on UPR Protests : Police Return to Campus on Governor’s Orders

  By Maegan La Mala | February 24, 2011 - 12:10 pm |
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The police have officially returned to the University of Puerto Rico at Rio Piedras on the orders of Governor Luis Fortuño. This is the regular police, who according to William Ramirez of the Puerto Rican ACLU, have actually never left the campus.

According to El Nuevo Dia, the riot police have not been called to campus but remain on alert and nearby in case, according to Fortuño, “A violent group tries to bring violence and intolerance to the University”.

There were incidents of violence on campus yesterday due to some students blocking at least one entrance to the campus as part of a a strike action. The incident that I witnessed via video was a professor physically attacking students blocking the entrance and students responding in self-defense. The governor has called the student strike a “dictatorship”.

The violence of the police against the student protesters is the focus of close scrutiny of the Puerto Rican ACLU which released a report calling the situation a human rights crisis (PDF file).

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Puerto Rico’s ACLU Identifies Pattern and Practice of Abuse Against UPR Students

  By Maegan La Mala | February 22, 2011 - 9:19 am |
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Last night I attended an educational meeting at the Julia de Burgos Cultural Center in el Barrio NYC that featured William Ramirez, Executive Director of the American Civil Liberties Union in Puerto Rico. The meeting was to update those in solidarity with the students and other protesters in Puerto Rico as to what is happening on the ground and what are some possible next steps, in terms of fighting back against the brutality that has been unleashed upon students exercising their constitutional rights.

Ramirez lamented the lack of U.S. media coverage of the goings on and expressed how Al Jazeera and the BBC have both been on the ground in Puerto Rico demonstrating that the international media seems more interested than U.S. media (a complaint VivirLatino shares). Ramirez urged the audience that grew to about 75 people, to compare how police in Wisconsin are treating protesters and the media coverage given to those actions to how police are treating protesters in Puerto Rico and media coverage (or lack thereof).

In response to the U.S. media ignoring the situation and various gag rules that have been put on students by the University of Puerto Rico, the students have rallied behind the slogan “Callar Jamas” – Never Silenced. Certainly the videos, images and first hand accounts circulating via social media and independent media networks is proof of this slogan in action.
(more…)

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More Police Violence Against UPR Student Protesters

  By Maegan La Mala | February 10, 2011 - 12:10 pm |
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Riot Police Officer in Puerto Rico Covered in Pinkish Paint

Via Indy P.R. comes a photo-report of a protest that went down yesterday at the UPR in Rio Piedras, that ended with pepper spray, physical violence and arrests.

According to the report, students held a peaceful protest that involved them painting messages outside against the fee which sparked this latest round of protests and against the police presence inside the University and the violence it has brought. The protest was met with more police violence. According to the report the violence was a response to student complaints about video surveillance that the students say the police have been using to create files on students. The images in the photo report show police pulling protesters by the hair, police using pepper spray on students, police using their bodies as weapons by placing their knees on the necks of students.

You can see the full photo report here.

And don’t forget that if you are in the NYC area tonight, there is a fundraiser for the UPR student protesters.

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Accusations of Sexual Aggression Against Police Arresting Students in Puerto Rico

  By Maegan La Mala | January 31, 2011 - 9:15 am |
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From Indy Media Puerto Rico

The Caribbean Peace & Justice Project, el Grito de las Excluidas y Excluidos de Puerto Rico (The Cry of the Excluded of Puerto Rico), and the Pro-Haitian/Dominican Childhood Committee issued a press release yesterday denouncing and demanding an investigation into inappropriate touching (or toqueteo/feeling up) of women by the riot police in Puerto Rico who have been arresting those UPR students engaged in civil disobedience.

A video on Indymedia Puerto Rico shows an officer, on two clear occasions, touching the breasts of a young woman he is arresting and restraining in a police van. No doubt the police and Gov. will defend the actions saying the officers were merely restraining the protester and that they may have had accidental contact. From my perspective it looks like the officer took an opportunity to “cop a feel” (pun intended) not once but twice.

As we think of what is happening in Egypt, Tunisia, Puerto Rico and globally really wherever young people are gathered, especially those that identify as women, we have to wonder and know that once incident caught on video likely represents countless more incidents not documented.

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Protests and Arrests Continue at the University of Puerto Rico

  By Maegan La Mala | January 21, 2011 - 9:52 am |
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Yesterday marked the second day of coordinated civil disobedience at the University of Puerto Rico in Rio Piedras as part of a strike that protests an $800 fee that some say is aimed at making the constitutional protected right to education in Puerto Rico a privilege.

Video from the first day of civil disobedience where at least 50 people were arrested. In one scene it looks as if about five police officers pile on top of one protester in order to arrest him. In the background you can hear a woman saying, “Ya, you have him already,” so that police will get off his back.

*****Please note that the videos do show police roughly arresting some and could be triggering*****

Some of the chants you will hear below, the second day of protest, include “Who is that you hear? The students leading the struggle” (It rhymes in Spanish). “Struggle Yes. Giving Up No”. The young woman in the blue shirt yells that those are arresting her, the police, are accomplices of an administration that wants to limit access to public education and she asks them, “How are you going to look at your children when they cannot enter the university”.

This is a struggle that has been going on for months with very little coverage in the U.S. media even though Puerto Rico is a colony of the U.S. I ask again, were this happening at a university in Indiana, would it be so ignored?

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