Peltier transferred, supporters urged to take action
By
Stephanie Hedgecoke
Published Jul 14, 2005 9:06 PM
Indigenous political prisoner Leonard
Peltier, a Lakota-Anishnabe, has been moved from Leavenworth Federal Peni
tentiary to the maximum security prison at Terre Haute, Ind., and is being kept
in the hole indefinitely.
The Leonard Peltier Defense Com mittee (LPDC) is
calling on all supporters to call and write the prison to allow Peltier to
contact his family, “ask how he is, ask where to write, ask if he’s
okay, ask about his health, his privileges (phones, letters, visits, religious
rights, ability to paint)” and to let them “know that the entire
world is watching.” The contacts for the prison are: USP Terre Haute, 4700
Bureau Rd. South, Terre Haute, IN 47802; phone (812) 244-4400 and fax (812)
244-4789.
As Leavenworth is being converted from maximum to medium
security, prisoners are being transferred to Terre Haute and also a
“supermax” prison at Florence, Colo. Prisoners at Terre Haute are
forced to work and its prison industry includes ammunition production for the
U.S. military. Peltier’s attorney, Barry Bachrach, told Democracy Now!
reporter Amy Goodman that Peltier will stay at Terre Haute “unless we can
change his security level.” Peltier is an elder and has health
issues.
Leonard Peltier has been in prison for almost 30 years for a crime
he did not commit. Two FBI agents died in 1976 at Pine Ridge Reservation during
a shootout which the FBI had started in a tiny reservation village as children,
adults and elders slept in their homes. There was never any evidence that
Peltier fired the shots. The U.S. suppressed hundreds of thousands of documents
in his favor to extradite him from Canada.
U.S. prosecutors have publicly
admitted that they do not know who actually fired the shots that killed the
agents. The FBI has never released these documents, despite many Freedom of
Information Act actions brought by Peltier’s lawyers.
One of the FBI
officers who directed COINTELPRO—the illegal counterintelligence program
that targeted and assassinated many members of the American Indian Movement, the
Black Panther Party and other groups in the 1960s and 1970s—was Mark Felt,
recently praised in the media as the news source for the Nixon Watergate
crimes.
The U.S. government, in violation of its own statutes, has
repeatedly refused to parole Peltier since he became eligible over 11 years ago
and will not consider him for parole until he has served over twice the normal
term for his alleged offense.
On June 15, a hearing in Peltier’s
case held in Fargo, N.D., addressed the illegality of his sentencing based on
the sovereignty of the Lakota Nation. The U.S. District Court used a statute
citing the “territorial jurisdiction of the United States,” but the
incident for which he was charged took place on reservation lands, which have
been ruled “domestic, dependent sovereigns” by the Supreme Court.
Bachrach states, “The hearing is important because Mr. Peltier was never
charged with crimes over which the U.S. had jurisdiction.”
Leonard
Peltier is recognized around the world as a political prisoner. Everyone from
Nelson Mandela to past and present members of the U.S. Congress and many human
rights organizations have called for his freedom.
The defense committee
must now move to Terre Haute from Kansas, an expensive undertaking. It asks that
donations be sent to the Peltier Legal Fund in care of his attorney, Barry
Bachrach Esq., Bowditch & Dewey LLC, 311 Main St., Worcester, MA 01615.
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