Convicted Terrorist Rejects Puerto Rican Day Parade’s Honor, Will Still March

Oscar López Rivera — who led the FALN and served 35 years in prison for his role in the Puerto Rican nationalist group’s terrorist campaign in the 1970s — decided to not accept an honor from the National Puerto Rican Day Parade, after major sponsors withdrew from the event due to the resulting controversy.

Rivera is still planning on marching in the annual event in New York City as a “humble Puerto Rican,” according to a Friday report from NBC News.

The convicted terrorist revealed his intentions in a Thursday column published by the New York Daily News. The newspaper also disclosed that the New York City government had apparently been calling for “López Rivera to step aside.”

Days earlier, top sponsors of the parade — including Goya, the New York Yankees, Coca-Cola, JetBlue, AT&T, and the Daily News itself — all dropped their sponsorship in the wake of the announcement that López Rivera would be honored as “Prócer de la Libertad (National Freedom Hero).”

The newspaper underlined in an editorial that “López Rivera was never charged in direct connection with a bombing. But it is beyond dispute that he proudly oversaw the unrepentantly violent movement. It is also beyond dispute that he has never expressed remorse.”

Former President Barack Obama commuted the sentence of López Rivera just before he left office in January 2017. He was released from detention on May 17, 2017, after serving over half of his 55-year prison sentence for “‘seditious conspiracy’…attempted robbery, explosives and vehicle-theft charges,” as detailed in a January 2017 article from Politico.

[image via screengrab]