Olga Viscal Garriga - Student Activist

Student Activist

Viscal enrolled in the University of Puerto Rico where she earned her Doctoral Degree in Political Sciences. During the late 1940s, and while finishing her Ph.D., she became a student leader and spokesperson of the Puerto Rican Nationalist Party's branch in Rio Piedras. The Party was headed by Dr. Pedro Albizu Campos, and favored the forceful expulsion of the U.S. from Puerto Rico.

On May 21, 1948, a bill was introduced before the Puerto Rican Senate which would restrain the rights of the independence and Nationalist movements in the island. The Senate, controlled by the PPD and presided by Luis Muñoz Marín, approved the Bill. The Bill, also known as the Ley de la Mordaza (Gag Law), made it illegal to display a Puerto Rican flag, to sing a patriotic tune, to speak of independence, or to advocate for the liberation of the island - even if this speech or advocacy occurred in one's own living room.

The bill resembled the anti-communist Smith Law passed in the United States. was signed and made into law on June 10, 1948, by the U.S.-appointed governor of Puerto Rico, Jesús T. Piñero and became known as Ley 53 (Law 53).

In accordance with the new law, it would be a crime to print, publish, sell or exhibit any material which advocated against the U.S. insular government, or to assist any organize any group or assembly of people who advocated or intended the same. Anyone accused and found guilty of disobeying the law could be sentenced to ten years of prison, fined $10,000 dollars (US), or both. According to Dr. Leopoldo Figueroa, a member of the Puerto Rico House of Representatives, the law was in direct violation of the First Amendment of the US Constitution, which guarantees Freedom of Speech. Given that all Puerto Ricans were U.S. citizens as of 1917, this law violated the civil rights of every Puerto Rican.

Viscal, who befriended Dr. Pedro Albizu Campos, was a talented orator and political activist. Although she was not directly involved in any violent act in 1950, Viscal was arrested because she participated in a demonstration that turned deadly in Old San Juan, after U.S. forces opened fire on the demonstrators. In the violent confrontation between the "Nationalists" and the "Forces" of the United States, one of the demonstrators was killed. She was detained on November 2, along with Carmen María Pérez Roque and Ruth Mary Reynolds (The American Nationalist) and held in the La Princesa jail. During her trial in the federal court in Old San Juan, she was uncooperative with the U. S. Government prosecution and refused to recognize the authority of the U.S. over Puerto Rico. She was sentenced to eight years in prison for contempt of court, and released after serving five.