Take Action: Free Leonard Peltier

December 4, 2024 / aztec8888 / Leave a comment

ACTION ALERT: Calling all supporters of Leonard Peltier to sign this petition to urge President Joe Biden to grant Leonard Peltier executive clemency. #FreeLeonardPeltier

Background

“The fight has not ended for me” – Leonard Peltier

Leonard Peltier, a member of the Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa Indians, is in his 50th year of imprisonment. Leonard is 80 years old and his health is rapidly declining. He stands as a symbol of the ongoing racism and oppression against Native Americans in the United States criminal justice system, issues that Leonard fought against in the 1970’s and throughout his incarceration.

On July 2nd, millions of people across Indian Country were devastated to learn that Leonard Peltier, an activist and member of the American Indian Movement, had been denied parole by the United States Parole Commission. The Commission issued the decision after a parole hearing on June 10th at the United States Penitentiary Coleman I in Florida, where Mr. Peltier is currently incarcerated.

“They denied parole to a survivor of genocidal Indian boarding schools as he struggles to survive this unjust incarceration, they insist on holding him for a crime for which they have no physical evidence against him. Clearly, the Parole Commission – which is supposed to be an independent body – was influenced by the FBI. The FBI continues to abuse its power, promote false narratives, and engage in counterintelligence activities. The FBI has no regard for the Constitution or the laws they have sworn an oath to protect.” – Nick Tilsen, President and CEO, NDN Collective

The FBI director at the time J. Edgar Hoover was waging a war against anyone he perceived as a threat. His violent and illegal tactics under COINTELPRO — the FBI’s Counterintelligence Program (1956 to 1971) — were a direct assault on the American Indian Movement, the Black Panther Party, and the Women’s Liberation Movement. “Hoover’s FBI did everything it could to consciously and deliberately derail the Civil Rights Movement,” said Stevie Van Zandt

While Leonard’s attorneys file an appeal of this decision, we call on President Joe Biden to grant executive clemency to #BringLeonardHome. President Biden promised to be a friend and ally of Indigenous Peoples.

Will Biden release the oldest living Indigenous political prisoner in American history, or will he simply allow Peltier to die in prison?

President Biden, you have the power to do what’s right we are demanding that you #FreeLeonardPeltier NOW via Executive Clemency. The whole world is watching.

Sign the petition today to let President Biden know we will not stop fighting for Leonard’s freedom. We are all not free until Leonard is free.

Parole Denied

July 9, 2024 / aztec8888 / Leave a comment

With a heavy heart, I report to you that, once again, American Indian Movement (AIM) activist Leonard Peltier has been denied his freedom. On July 2 — despite the best efforts of a large coalition and so many who lobbied the U.S. Parole Commission to do the right thing by Leonard, behind bars since 1977 and our longest-standing political prisoner — it decided against his release.

That said, options remain — so we must keep the pressure on! We continue to ask the president to grant Leonard clemency and let this legendary justice defender live out his remaining years at home. As we have mentioned to you before, Leonard has serious health issues which the prison cannot properly handle. Time is running out. That’s why we hope you’ll send your message to the president and share this action today.

It’s long past time for the president to free Leonard Peltier. Please send your message and share this action.

Understand that Leonard’s case is a classic miscarriage of justice. Leonard, a citizen of the Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa in North Dakota and a Dakota, was a key member of AIM — which pushed back hard in the 1970s against violence in our communities perpetrated under the auspices of federal law enforcement. Thus, the government went after him hard and, despite a host of problems with his trial, he’s now serving two life sentences as a scapegoat.

Problems with his conviction include a lack of eyewitnesses, recanted testimony from other witnesses, and withheld ballistics evidence. The prosecuting attorney is now on record saying Leonard should be freed — and a host of other justice advocates, including Amnesty International and the Dalai Lama, agree.

Leonard’s freedom is an issue of Indigenous sovereignty, as embodied by a single man. A good human being has now spent nearly 50 years behind bars, essentially because he’s Native and once made for a convenient example. Enough is enough! Please send your message to President Biden. Ask him to do the right thing, show empathy to a misunderstood elder with a good heart, and grant clemency to Leonard Peltier.

Wopila tanka — thank you for showing your love and respect.
Chase Iron Eyes
Director and Lead Counsel
The Lakota People’s Law Project

Lakota People’s Law Project
547 South 7th Street #149
Bismarck, ND 58504-5859

Featured

Free Leonard Peltier

September 13, 2023 / aztec8888 / Leave a comment

https://ictnews.org/news/let-leonard-peltier-go-home

Jourdan Bennett-Begaye and Pauly Denetclaw
ICT

WHITE HOUSE — A young Indigenous girl walked through Lafayette Park in front of the White House with an American Indian Movement flag. Her tiny frame held the six-foot bamboo stake steady as the flag blew in the wind. A stark reminder of how many generations the movement to free Leonard Peltier from prison has gone on.

On Tuesday, NDN Collective, a national Indigenous-led organization, and Amnesty International, held the Free Leonard Peltier 79th Birthday Action in Washington, D.C., to demand clemency for the Native American rights activist who has been incarcerated for nearly five decades. Hundreds attended the peaceful rally where prayer songs echoed and at times people danced, but still thirty-five demonstrators were arrested, according to NDN Collective. At one point the U.S. Park Police brought out a sonic weapon and U.S. Secret Service created a barrier of agents on the sidewalk.

A young girl in a ribbon skirt holds an American Indian Movement flag during the Free Leonard Peltier 79th Birthday Action in front of the White House in Washington, D.C. on September 12, 2023. (Pauly Denetclaw, ICT)

“Our goal with this event is to raise awareness and bring attention to the plight of Leonard Peltier and his incarceration. Because we’re at a point in time where the Biden administration has made it a priority for Native American civil rights, and yet the longest living political prisoner in American history, who is Indigenous, is still in there,” said NDN Collective President and CEO Nick Tilsen, Oglala Lakota. “And so we’re calling upon (President Joe) Biden and the Biden administration to release Leonard. This is a priority for Indian Country.”

Leonard maintains he did not commit the 1975 murder of two FBI agents on Oglala Lakota land.

Context in this case matters. It happened during the Reign of Terror where dozens of Indigenous people were murdered, found dead or just disappeared from the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation. This happened in the years after the 71-day occupation of Wounded Knee where AIM leaders seized control of the area and declared it the Independent Oglala Nation. The stand off between AIM and the federal government was at times violent.

From 1973 to 1976, the FBI targeted and harassed Indigenous activists in the area. During these years there were more than 60 murders and Pine Ridge had the highest murder rate per capita in the country.

Kevin Sharp, former federal judge and Leonard Peltier’s legal representation, attended the Free Leonard Peltier 79th Birthday Action in Washington, D.C. on September 12, 2023. (Jourdan Bennett-Begaye, ICT)

The 1975 murders in question took place during a shootout between Indigenous activists and the two FBI agents. The federal government didn’t have enough evidence to charge Leonard with murder. He was charged with aiding and abetting the murder of federal officers and a seven-year sentence for an escape attempt.

“If he was tried today, no way he gets convicted,” Kevin Sharp, Leonard’s attorney and former federal judge, told ICT. “That is not the law today. The violations that law enforcement committed, that the US Attorney’s Office committed at that time, the threats, the intimidation is a constitutional violation.”

This is why many call Leonard, Turtle Mountain Ojibwe, a political prisoner and are demanding President Biden grant him clemency.

“We’re not asking for a pardon,” Sharp said. “Pardon would require someone to admit that he committed a crime, which he did not. But he is clearly a prisoner of politics. This is about politics. So, it’s the politics that keep him there. But I think it’s the politics that are going to free him.”

RELATED:
— Leonard Peltier’s 46 years in prison: ‘What else do you want?’
— WATCH: ‘It’s time’ for Leonard Peltier’s release

Kathy Peltier, daughter of Leonard Peltier, attended the the Free Leonard Peltier 79th Birthday Action in Washington, D.C. Kathy is Navajo and Turtle Mountain Ojibwe. (Jourdan Bennett-Begaye, ICT)

Leonard’s daughter, Kathy Peltier, attended the rally in Washington to demand freedom for her father, “a dad figure” she never had growing up. She advocates for his freedom to younger generations across the country and overseas.

Kathy, Navajo and Turtle Mountain Ojibwe, last saw her dad three years ago. It’s difficult for her to calculate how many times she’s seen him. She only knows that her and her siblings could only see him for a short time so most of the allotted visitor time for him could be spent with lawyers.

Leonard missed out on a lot of Kathy’s firsts, said her mom, Ann Begaye, Navajo.

He missed her high school graduation at 18. Kathy is now 47.

“I was hoping my dad would be there. So when that day came and left, I was like, ‘wow, he’s gonna miss many more unless we get him freed.’ So I just want to free my dad,” Kathy said as her voice cracked. “I feel like it’s too late for me, but get my dad freed for his grandkids. So they get to know who he is, as a person, and not just locked up behind those bars.”

She also wished he could’ve been at ceremonies with her.

“When I first sat down, I wished my dad was right beside me to protect me in that circle,” she said. “Just teachings of what I should know as a woman and him telling me this is your auntie. Those are the moments I wish he was able to do. A lot of my aunties have gone and are not too well. So I’m not able to learn about what they could teach me as a young Turtle Mountain woman. So I had to rely on my grandma’s side and my auntie to teach me the Navajo side.”

Kathy said she would have wanted to know both sides of who she is.

A young boy looks back at a demonstrator yelling “Free Leonard Peltier” during the Free Leonard Peltier 79th Birthday Action in front of the White House in Washington, D.C. on September 12, 2023. Peltier has been incarcerated for nearly 50 years. (Pauly Denetclaw, ICT)

Under the hot sun with plenty of humidity was famed Native American rights leader and advocate Suzan Harjo, Cheyenne and Hodulgee Muscogee, her presence still larger than life and with her signature smile. She arrived at Pennsylvania Avenue behind the White House after demonstrators displayed a red and yellow banner, nearly as tall as (and perhaps taller than) the White House gates, painted, “President Biden, Free Leonard Peltier Now!”

Her message to Biden: “To reach deep, deep deep inside your heart. My old friend, Mr. Biden, and have all the compassion you can muster for my brother, Leonard Peltier. I’m pleading for family. I’m pleading for a relative. He’s not just a cause to me. He’s my family. Please, show compassion to this one man, this one Native man who needs to be free now. He wants to get out and look at the sky. He doesn’t want to go out in a wooden box. He wants to go out where he can talk to people and breathe free air, he said. Let him do that. He’s had two-thirds of his life behind bars. It’s time. It’s time.”

Free Leonard Peltier

February 8, 2023February 8, 2023 / aztec8888 / 1 Comment

Today marks a shameful anniversary. It’s now been 47 years since our Lakota and Ojibwe relative, Leonard Peltier, was arrested after taking part in the 1975 American Indian Movement (AIM) standoff at the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota. Wrongly convicted on false testimony for killing FBI agents, Leonard is now 78 years old and suffering with various health ailments in a federal penitentiary in Florida.

The good news is, the world has never forgotten Leonard, who during his lengthy incarceration has run for both President and Vice President of the United States. Today, “Rise Up for Peltier” events are happening in cities across the globe — including Paris, Rome, and Berlin. As part of this day of solidarity, our friends at the Red Nation Movement are also asking people to assist Leonard through their social media channels by sharing content and raising awareness.

Turtle Mountain’s Leonard Peltier, imprisoned in Florida, 1993. (Photo credit: Kevin McKiernan)

As Carol Gokee, co-director of the Leonard Peltier Defense Committee, wrote to you via our Lakota Law platform a year ago, the list of people who have supported clemency for Leonard is long and impressive. It includes Nobel Peace Prize winners Bishop Desmond Tutu, Nelson Mandela, and Rigoberta Menchú; former Chief Judge of Tennessee’s U.S. District Court, Kevin Sharp; Sens. Brian Schatz (D-HI) and Patrick Leahy (D-VT); Rep. Raúl Grijalva (D-AZ); and James Reynolds, the chief prosecutor who originally put Leonard behind bars.

As we approach the anniversary of AIM’s Wounded Knee stand later this month, we’ll have much more to share with you. Lakota Law organizers Madonna Thunder Hawk and DeCora Hawk are on the ground helping to prepare a big event, and you’ll hear more from them this week. In addition, our video team is working on setting up live video feeds and our communications staff is working on an action you’ll be able to take to demand clemency for Leonard.

You can find more info and other ways to assist right here. Please stay tuned and stand ready. We must do everything we can to right a grievous wrong. After nearly a half-century, It’s long past time to free Leonard Peltier.

Wopila tanka — thank you for your solidarity!
Chase Iron Eyes
Co-Director and Lead Counsel
The Lakota People’s Law Project