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NEWS AND ALERTS |
WHO
IS ALVARO?
New artwork by Alvaro Luna Hernandez
La Batalla, ink on cardboard Check out more of Alvaro's amazing art and writing in the Certain Days: 2007 Freedom for Political Prisoners Calendar! Despite the US government's lies that it holds no political prisoners in its prisons, Alvaro Luna Hernandez is an internationally recognized political prisoner imprisoned in Texas. Alvaro was a fierce advocate for the rights of immigrants, and other poor and oppressed barrios, in Houston, Texas, in the 90's. He spearheaded the Movement to Free undocumented Mexican immigrant RICARDO ALDAPE GUERRA from Texas' death row in 1996, framed for the killing of a Houston cop. With the rise of mass political demonstrations and a movement in defense of immigrants in this country, Alvaro's case shows the truths that this government will jail activists, repress dissent in order to deprive these social movements of genuine, grass roots leadership. Alvaro became a target of the political police and was framed in order to silence him and to kill the movements he led. With the rise of immigrant struggles, and the global movements for human rights and to expose racist, corrupt governments, Alvaro's case has taken on special prominence and the movement to free him is gaining resurgence. After 10 years in a Texas prison solitary cell, for defending himself against a racist West Texas Sheriff who was in the act of assaulting, even murdering him, and of the Alpine Police Dept. with a long history of brutality and the killing of innocent, unarmed Mexican Americans, as cited by the 1970 U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, * Alvaro continues to protest his innocence and refuses to surrender despite the brutal conditions of solitary confinement he is subjected to daily, aimed at breaking his spirit of resistance. From his solitary cell at the Hughes Unit in Gatesville, Texas, Alvaro is calling on all oppressed peoples and groups to unite, to oppose the anti-Mexican hysteria and xenophobia of the US government and its right wing rulers, to defend the human rights of immigrants, and to bring political clarity to these movements in raising the banner of de-colonization of the occupied territories of the Southwest United States, land stolen from Mexico in the colonial war of plunder and annexation of the 1800's, to tear down the military border and for the reunification of the divided Mexican Homeland. As freedom, justice loving people, we must support Alvaro and struggle to free him from this racist, unjust political imprisonment, so he can return to his community and lead the movements he spearheaded years ago.
For more info on how you can help, email montrealabcf@gmail.com or twitchon@hotmail.com. A solidarity message can be mailed directly to Alvaro at: * The Alpine Police, responsible for framing Alvaro, have a long history of brutality, the killing of innocent Mexican Americans. The police killing of 16 year old Ervay Ramos, Alvaro's friend, was cited by the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights in its report: MEXICAN AMERICANS AND THE ADMINISTRATION OF JUSTICE IN THE SOUTHWEST. See U.S. Print. Office, Library of Congress, Wash, D.C. pp. 4-6; See also, Testimonio: A Documentary History_of_the Mexican American Struggle_for_CivilRights, F. Arturo Rosales, Arte Publico Press, p. 352 (2000) www.arte.uh.edu. Testimony at Alvaro's trial proved that the police framed Alvaro because he was documenting cases of police brutality and was calling for federal criminal civil rights charges against the police in the re-opening of the Ramos murder, State V. Hernandez, Cause NO. 3283, 394th District Court, Brewster Co. Tex. June 2-6, 1997 Trial Testimony Vol. 1 thru 12; See also Senate Select Committee To Study Governmental Operations With Respect To Intelligence Activities, 1976 (COINTELPRO) |
ISSUES
CRIMINALIZATION OF PEOPLE OF COLOR
