By The Star Staff
The Puerto Rico Committee for Human Rights (CPDHPR by its Spanish initials) has chosen Kevin Miguel Rivera-Medina, a lawyer, as its new spokesperson, said Eduardo “Tuto” Villanueva Muñoz, another lawyer.
“The responsibility of directing our committee falls on Kevin Miguel Rivera, a prominent jurist, who has led several campaigns in favor of our country’s human and constitutional rights,” Villanueva Muñoz said.
The new spokesman chaired the World Coalition Against the Death Penalty, based in Paris, and for more than a decade has directed the Puerto Rico Bar Association’s Commission on the Death Penalty.
“It is an honor that those who make up the committee have had the confidence to discharge this enormous responsibility on me for several reasons,” Rivera Medina said. “First, for the sacrificial dedication to just causes on the part of those who make up the committee; second, because there is a legacy of the spokesperson for Tuto Villanueva, who carried this work on his shoulders in an exemplary manner for so many years; and third, because it is a charge that Edgardo Román Espada had welcomed, until the moment of his death, injecting all his energy and wisdom into it.”
“Now it is our turn to honor a historical work and renew our vows to continue in the first line of defense of the fundamental rights of the people at a time when they are threatened by problems such as displacement, the looting of public services, and their natural resources, or the socioeconomic and undemocratic control exercised by a fiscal board not elected by the people,” Rivera-Medina added.
The CPDHPR has stood out for promoting the cessation of repression against the people and their social justice organizations. Within this framework, it educates, mobilizes and denounces, in a broad and united way, in national and international forums, regarding the persecution and violation of the rights of those who fight colonialism, as well as those who work for an equitable society, for accessible public education, for the protection of natural and environmental resources and the gender perspective, among other social causes.