Biography
Juan Vilar was a Puerto Rican anarchist educator and editor of Voz Humana. During the 1911 Caguas labor conflict, authorities detained him on suspicion of involvement in a murder conspiracy. In Ex parte Vilar, the Supreme Court of Puerto Rico recorded his imprisonment in San Juan from March 22, 1911 and upheld his habeas corpus claim on June 20. He was separately prosecuted under the obscenity law for newspaper articles, including an account of a priest abusing a child. Pueblo v. Vilar records a two-year sentence on May 29, 1911, release on $500 bail during appeal, and reduction to one year on November 3. Historian Kirwin R. Shaffer documents his entry into Humacao jail in November 1911 and release in late 1912. Vilar died on May 1, 1915.
