July 3, 2024
Peltier’s supporters rally in front of Federal Building in Rapid City, SD, on June 27. photo: Angel White Eyes, NDN Collective.
Longtime political prisoner Leonard Peltier (Turtle Mountain Ojibwe), a member of the American Indian Movement (AIM), who is the longest held Indigenous political prisoner in the US, was denied parole on Tuesday by the bogus US Parole Commission. The US which has the largest per capita incarcerated population in the world with that population aging and sick as is the case of Leonard. His parole hearing on June 10, 2024, was the first in 15 years. According to Peltier’s lawyer, Kevin Sharp, an interim hearing has now been scheduled for 2026, while a full hearing has been scheduled for June 2039, when Peltier will be 94. He will turn 80 on September 12, 2024.
“Today is a sad day for Indigenous Peoples and justice everywhere,” said Nick Tilsen, president and CEO of the NDN Collective, an Indigenous organization that has been fighting to free Peltier. “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.”
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Statement of Attorneys for Leonard Peltier Regarding July 2, 2024 Parole Decision
The fight is not over until it is over. Lead attorney Jenipher Jones and Attorney Moira Meltzer-Cohen, whe are leading both the administrative appeal and litigation on behalf of Mr. Peltier, will appeal the United States Parole Commission’s grotesquely unconstitutional decision.
Leonard is a prisoner of war
In a moment of bitter irony, as the nation heads into the 4th of July Independence Day holiday, the United States Parole Commission failed to recommend Leonard Peltier, who is the longest-serving Indigenous political prisoner for release. The USPC’s July 2, 2024 decision continues to impose upon Mr. Peltier a slow Death by Incarceration. The Parole Commission’s decision only illustrates the truth of the United Nations Working Group on Arbitrary Detention report stating that Leonard’s incarceration constitutes an arbitrary detention and noting his parole hearings as a key contributing factor to what they have characterized as his unjustly prolonged incarceration.
Though Congress mandated the closure of the US Parole Commission in 1987, it remains in operation, due to decades of reauthorizations and extensions. After unconstitutional misapplication of statutory parole provisions, the Commission is denying freedom to many vulnerable and elderly population of federal prisoners, known as “old prisoners” including Leonard Peltier and many other political prisoners.
Leonard is a prisoner of war. Echoing Fredrick Douglass this 4th of July holiday, we reflect on his enduring words, “what have…those I represent, to do with your national independence? Are the great principles of political freedom and of natural justice, embodied in that Declaration of Independence, extended to us?”
Upon hearing the news Leonard sent us this message that he gave us permission to share: I just heard parole was Denied!! Actually they gave me more time..AND THAT IS A Death sentence!! And the parole board doesn’t even exist, or AMERICAN AND INTERNATIONAL LAWS!! The fight has not ended for me and so far Jenn Jones has Sworn her full support to the end. DOKSHA L.P.
We who believe in freedom cannot rest. We will not give up the fight for Leonard – and neither should you.
Source: Resumen Latinoamericano – English