Isabel Freire de Matos

Isabel Freire de Matos[note 1] (February 2, 1915 – September 30, 2004) was a writer, educator, journalist, and activist for Puerto Rican independence.

The Senate, which at the time was controlled by the Partido Popular Democrático (PPD) and presided by Luis Muñoz Marín, approved the bill.

[4] Under this new law it became a crime to print, publish, sell, or exhibit any material intended to paralyze or destroy the insular government; or to organize any society, group or assembly of people with a similar destructive intent.

According to Dr. Leopoldo Figueroa, a non-PPD member of the Puerto Rico House of Representatives, the law was repressive and was in violation of the First Amendment to the US Constitution which guarantees Freedom of Speech.

In September 1950, her husband traveled to the towns of Cabo Rojo, Santurce, Guánica and Lares, where he participated in Nationalist activities.

[2] On the basis of this "evidence" her husband was fired from his professorship at the University of Puerto Rico, and sentenced to a twenty-year prison term, which was later reduced to ten years.

She tried to get them published and even though they were inoffensive, the context of the "Gag Law" and its intended effect, to silence all opposition made the poems take on a different meaning.

[1] On May 26, 1955, after ten months in jail and in poor health, her husband was finally pardoned by Puerto Rican Governor Luis Muñoz Marín.

[2] On 1971, she also collaborated with the publication of Fe Acosta de González's "Matemáticas modernas en el nivel elementa" (Modern Math at the elementary level.