New York congressmen are demanding federal hearings and an investigation into a recent FBI counterterrorism sweep targeting a pro-independence group in Puerto Rico.

The calls from Washington joined a mounting wave of demands from public officials – including the island’s governor, chief of police, bar association, and every major journalism outlet – for an examination of protocol violations, such as the use of excessive force, during the six simultaneous raids Friday morning.

Reps. Jose Serrano and Lydia Velazquez, both Democrats of New York, as well as Rep. Luis Gutierrez, a Democrat of Illinois, sent a letter yesterday to the director of the FBI, Robert Mueller, asking for an investigation. “We are particularly troubled by what appeared to be the excessive use of force against members of the press as they attempted to cover the FBI operation,” the letter says.

Also yesterday, Rep. Charles Rangel, a Democrat of New York, requested a congressional oversight hearing in Puerto Rico and asked that the House Judiciary Committee conduct hearings in Washington, with witnesses to include journalists who were pepper-sprayed by FBI agents.

Echoing other critics on the island and in New York, he said he feared the FBI used the idea that the Puerto Rican separatist group posed a terrorism threat to mask intentions to rout out the group. “It appears that under the guise of anti-terrorism, there seems to be a violation of a lot of rights,” Mr. Rangel said. “Our Puerto Rican friends are just as much citizens as those of us in Washington.”

Although residents of Puerto Rico, a U.S. commonwealth that is a former Spanish colony, are American citizens, they cannot vote in presidential elections, have no voting representatives in Congress, and they pay no federal taxes. Recent polls have shown that residents tend to favor this situation, but there are movements both to become the 51st state and to separate from the America.

Friday’s FBI sweep was aimed at the Boricua National Army, a pro-independence organization that federal agents said had plans to use explosives against private businesses. Agents executed six search warrants on private houses and one business with the stated intention of thwarting a “domestic terrorist attack.” When journalists went to cover one of the searches they clashed with FBI agents, who pepper sprayed some of them.

The FBI has declined any wrongdoing, asserting the journalists violated a restricted area. The special agent in charge of the San Juan Division, Luis Fraticelli, said in a statement issued Monday, “FBI agents displayed great restraint” while “various persons assaulted or attempted to assault FBI agents by pushing, kicking, spitting, or throwing objects.”

The congressmen, however, criticized the close-range use of pepper spray against reporters and cited reports that the chief of police, as well as the rest of the government of Puerto Rico, were not informed prior to the search.

“In our democracy, the most fundamental obligation of law enforcement agencies is to uphold the constitutional rights of citizens as well as to protect the freedom of the press,” the congressmen wrote to the director of the FBI, Robert Mueller. “Even in Puerto Rico, where the Bureau and its agents have a reputation for behaving as if they are above the law, the FBI is not exempt from these duties.”

Results of an investigation into the FBI killing of a leader of the Boricua National Army last September are pending. Filiberto Ojeda Rios was living as a fugitive in Puerto Rico after being charged with a 1983 bank robbery. In a September sweep of his home, FBI agent shot Rios, after which he allegedly was denied medical care by the authorities.

A spokesman for the FBI, William Carter, said yesterday, in reference to Friday’s sweep, that the FBI was fulfilling its responsibility to protect American citizens. “When we have indications that a group is planning a violent act, then we would conduct an investigation and take appropriate actions based on those investigation,” he said.