So for those of you who don't know much about this situation, or maybe heard about the recent parole denial, I thought it would be worth bringing this to your attention.
Leonard Peltier was convicted in 1977 of the shooting deaths of two federal agents on a SD Indian Reservation in 1975. The investigation and trial were full of inaccuracies, controversy and ultimately very little evidence against Peltier. Ultimately however, he was convicted of life in prison (which was technically a 10 year sentence in ND at the time) while his two co-defendants were acquitted. Leonard was recently denied parole again, although he is in poor health, has had no issues or bad behavior in prison and has many supporters such as Dalai Lama, Nelson Mandela, Amnesty International, etc.
That's obviously the very short version of the story and I don't really know what average citizens can do to help out but I do think it's very important for all of us to be aware of situations like this. If nothing else, knowing which political figures are supporting or condemning him may play a role in future elections.
Anyways, if you want to learn more here is a link to the Leonard Peltier Defense Committee website:
There's also a great documentary about all of this, Incident at Oglala. Albeit a little old, it has a lot of great information in it. You can also read a few great interviews with Peltier at http://www.hpr1.com/, a couple right before his most recent parole hearing and one right after learning about his denial.
Normally in situations like this it's really easy to look at it and say "tough crap, the guy shouldn't have been involved in this stuff" but if you really take the time to learn about this situation you will see how unjust this is.
I'll get off my soapbox now...
No comments:
Post a Comment