Ricardo Jiménez was a Puerto Rican member of the

Fuerzas Armadas de Liberación Nacional Puertorriqueña The Fuerzas Armadas de Liberación Nacional (English: ''Armed Forces of National Liberation'', FALN) was a Puerto Rican clandestine paramilitary organization that, through direct action, advocated independence for Puerto Rico. It carried out more ...

who was sentenced to 90 years in prison for

seditious Sedition is overt conduct, such as speech or organization, that tends toward rebellion against the established order. Sedition often includes subversion of a constitution and incitement of discontent toward, or insurrection against, establis ...

conspiracy and other charges. He was sentenced on February 18, 1981, and incarcerated in a U.S. federal prison. However, he was released early from prison, after President

Bill Clinton William Jefferson Clinton (né Blythe III; born August 19, 1946) is an American politician and lawyer who was the 42nd president of the United States from 1993 to 2001. A member of the Democratic Party (United States), Democratic Party, ...

extended a clemency offer to him on September 7, 1999."12 Imprisoned Puerto Ricans Accept Clemency Conditions"
by John M. Broder. ''The New York Times'' September 8, 1999

Early years and personal life

Jiménez was born in

Puerto Rico ; abbreviated PR), officially the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, is a Government of Puerto Rico, self-governing Caribbean Geography of Puerto Rico, archipelago and island organized as an Territories of the United States, unincorporated territo ...

in 1956. His family moved to the U.S. when he was still an infant. He attended Tuley High School in Chicago when the school was in the midst of a crisis brought about by the lack of a relevant curriculum for Puerto Rican students. As a member of Aspira and the student council he was a leader in struggles which ultimately led to the creation of the

Roberto Clemente Roberto Enrique Clemente Walker (; August 18, 1934 – December 31, 1972) was a Puerto Rican professional baseball player who played 18 seasons in Major League Baseball (MLB) for the Pittsburgh Pirates, primarily as a right fielder. On December ...

High School. Jiménez was also Vice President of the Senior Class, a member of the national Honor Society and in 1974 was chosen by the mayor as the city of Chicago's Senior High School Student of the Year. In his community Jiménez worked as a volunteer at El Rancor, a drug rehabilitation center, and on a project on housing which led to the exposure of a plan called the Chicago 21 plan, to turn the Puerto Rican community into an enclave for the high income professional class. Upon graduation he attended Loyola University and was a member of the Latin American Student Organization, which developed the university's first Puerto Rican history class. He later attended

Illinois Institute of Technology The Illinois Institute of Technology, commonly referred to as Illinois Tech and IIT, is a Private university, private research university in Chicago, Illinois, United States. Tracing its history to 1890, the present name was adopted upon the m ...

in Chicago and was selected to represent the student body in a national conference on the need to force large U.S. corporations to open their doors to Latino engineers and other high tech professionals.

Seditious conspiracy

Jiménez and 11 others were arrested on April 4, 1980, in

Evanston, Illinois Evanston is a city in Cook County, Illinois, United States, situated on the North Shore (Chicago), North Shore along Lake Michigan. A suburb of Chicago, Evanston is north of Chicago Loop, downtown Chicago, bordered by Chicago to the south, Skok ...

. They had been linked to more than 100 bombings or attempted bombings since 1974 in their attempt to achieve independence for Puerto Rico. At their trial proceedings, some of the arrested declared their status as

prisoners of war A prisoner of war (POW) is a person held captive by a belligerent power during or immediately after an armed conflict. The earliest recorded usage of the phrase "prisoner of war" dates back to 1610. Belligerents hold prisoners of war for a ...

, and refused to participate in the proceedings. None of the bombings of which they were convicted resulted in deaths or injuries. Jimenez was given a 90-year federal sentence for seditious conspiracy and other charges. Among the other convicted Puerto Rican nationalists there were sentences of as long as 90 years in Federal prisons for offenses including sedition, possession of unregistered firearms, interstate transportation of a stolen vehicle, interference with interstate commerce by violence and interstate transportation of firearms with intent to commit a crime. None of those granted clemency were convicted in any of the actual bombings. Rather, they had been convicted on a variety of charges ranging from bomb making and conspiracy to armed robbery and firearms violations. They were all convicted for sedition, the act of attempting to overthrow the Government of the United States in Puerto Rico by force. In prison, Jimenez gravitated to educational programs, both as a student and as a tutor for other students. He volunteered teaching illiterate and functionally illiterate prisoners to read and write.

Human rights violations

There were reports of human rights violations against the FALN prisoners. The prisoners were placed in prisons far from their families, some were sexually assaulted by prison personnel, some were denied adequate medical attention, and others were kept in isolated underground prison cells for no reason.

Amnesty International Amnesty International (also referred to as Amnesty or AI) is an international non-governmental organization focused on human rights, with its headquarters in the United Kingdom. The organization says that it has more than ten million members a ...

and the House of Representatives' Subcommittee on Courts, Intellectual Property and the Administration of Justice both criticized the conditions. The conditions were found to be in violation of the ''U.N. Standard Minimum Rules for the Treatment of Prisoners''. A federal judge also expressed concerns regarding FALN prisoners held at the Female High Security Unit, Lexington, Kentucky. In the case of ''Baraldini vs. Meese'', the judge found that their exceptionally restrictive conditions of detention were not in response to any legitimate security threat, and were therefore "an exaggerated response" and in violation of the prisoners'

First Amendment First most commonly refers to: * First, the ordinal form of the number 1 First or 1st may also refer to: Acronyms * Faint Images of the Radio Sky at Twenty-Centimeters, an astronomical survey carried out by the Very Large Array * Far Infrared a ...

rights.

Political prisoner

At the time of their arrest Jimenez and the others declared themselves to be

combatant Combatant is the legal status of a person entitled to directly participate in hostilities during an armed conflict, and may be intentionally targeted by an adverse party for their participation in the armed conflict. Combatants are not afforded i ...

s in an anti-colonial war against the United States to liberate Puerto Rico from U.S. domination and invoked

prisoner of war A prisoner of war (POW) is a person held captive by a belligerent power during or immediately after an armed conflict. The earliest recorded usage of the phrase "prisoner of war" dates back to 1610. Belligerents hold prisoners of war for a ...

status. They argued that the U.S. courts did not have jurisdiction to try them as criminals and petitioned for their cases to be handed over to an

international court International courts are formed by treaties between Nation, nations, or by an international organization such as the United Nations – and include ''ad hoc'' tribunals and permanent institutions but exclude any courts arising purely under nationa ...

that would determine their status. The U.S. Government, however, did not recognize their request. The sentences received by Jimenez and the other Nationalists were judged to be "out of proportion to the nationalists' offenses." Statistics showed their sentences were almost 20 times greater than sentences for similar offenses by the American population at large. For many years, numerous national and international organizations criticized Jimenez's incarceration categorizing it as political imprisonment. Jiménez was finally released from prison on September 10, 1999, after President

extended him clemency. Clinton cited Rev.

Desmond Tutu Desmond Mpilo Tutu (7 October 193126 December 2021) was a South African Anglican bishop and theologian, known for his work as an anti-apartheid and human rights activist. He was Bishop of Johannesburg from 1985 to 1986 and then Archbishop ...

and former President

Jimmy Carter James Earl Carter Jr. (October 1, 1924December 29, 2024) was an American politician and humanitarian who served as the 39th president of the United States from 1977 to 1981. A member of the Democratic Party (United States), Democratic Party ...

as having been influential on his decision to grant Jimenez the clemency offer. Cases involving the release of other Puerto Rican Nationalist prisoners have also been categorized as cases of

political prisoner A political prisoner is someone imprisoned for their political activity. The political offense is not always the official reason for the prisoner's detention. There is no internationally recognized legal definition of the concept, although ...

s, with some being more vocal than others. In criticizing President Clinton's decision to release the Puerto Rican prisoners, the

conservative Conservatism is a cultural, social, and political philosophy and ideology that seeks to promote and preserve traditional institutions, customs, and values. The central tenets of conservatism may vary in relation to the culture and civiliza ...

U.S. Senate Republican Policy Committee also categorized Jimenez as a "Puerto Rican Nationalist", echoing a recent ''Newsweek'' article. In 2006, the United Nations called for the release of the remaining Puerto Rican political prisoners in United States prisons.

HIV/AIDS activism

As of 2011, Jiménez lives in Chicago and works as an HIV/AIDS counselor for the Latino HIV/AIDS support agency, Vida/SIDA, a project of the Puerto Rican Cultural Center. He is also active in the movement for funding of HIV intervention/prevention for the Latino community and for LGBTQ (lesbian/gay/bisexual/transgender/queer) rights. Jiménez is currently an openly gay man, as he has discussed in a radio interview."Ricardo Jimenez PR Gay Nat."
''YouTube'' April 5, 2011. Retrieved April 6, 2011.

References