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The Peace and Freedom Party ran Leonard Peltier for U.S. president in the 2004 election. A Native American activist who cares for humanity and the environment, he stood in sharp contrast to the corporate warmongers who dominated the news.
The campaign also called attention to his case, and the whole criminal injustice system. The election is over, and Peltier is still in prison. We must help revitalize efforts to get him out.
Leonard Peltier is a 60-year old Native American (Lakota and Ojibwa) who has been in prison for 28 years for a crime he did not commit.
Peltier was present, along with at least 30 other American Indian Movement (AIM) activists when two FBI agents and an AIM member were killed during a 1975 shootout on the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota. The government has admitted that it doesn't know who shot the agents, but Peltier is in prison in Leavenworth, Kansas.
Peltier is being held illegally. He should have been released twelve years ago if the U.S. Parole Commission acted under the Sentencing Reform Act of 1984. He is one of over 6,000 federal prisoners qualified for freedom who are still inside.
Recently, the government has refused to turn over about 90% of its documents about the case to defense attorneys. The FBI claims the information must remain classified because of the war on "transnational terrorism." It is ironic that after more than two centuries of broken treaties and attacks on Native American nations that the U.S. government should equate the Lakota people with foreign invaders.
Leonard Peltier is now 60 years old and his health is deteriorating, partly as a result of inadequate diet and poor medical treatment in prison. He suffers from diabetes, high blood pressure and a heart condition. He has suffered a stroke which left him partially blind in one eye. His spirit remains strong and healthy as he envisions and works toward a better world. In his 60th birthday letter to supporters, he wrote:
"Let us be revolutionaries in such a way that we enhance the circle of life. Let us be revolutionaries so that our children, generation after generation, shall enjoy freedom and a healthy, clean Mother Earth. Let our lives be based in the circle and not some straight line that has a dead end."
We cannot allow Peltier's death by unjust incarceration. If you'd like to join or start a support committee, please contact the
Leonard Peltier Defense Committeefor information.
P. O. Box 583
Lawrence, KS 66044-0583
785-842-5774
lpsg@leonardpeltier.org
www.leonardpeltier.org
You can write to Leonard Peltier at
Leonard Peltier
#89637-132
P O Box 1000
Leavenworth, KS 66048
He can only receive letters, cards, postcards, photos (not polaroid), and postal money orders for his commissary account. He will respond as he has time and materials.
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