Tag Archives: Leonard Peltier

Black Agenda Report Asks “If the Sioux Can Seek Justice, Why Can’t Blacks?”

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via BAR

The Pine Ridge, South Dakota, Oglala Sioux have convinced the U.S. Justice Department to re-examine 50 possible political killings, from the mid-Seventies, some of which are surely linked to the FBI’s infamous COINTELPRO. The program registered its biggest body count among African Americans, but Black Misleaders have made “no serious effort to exhume the full body of the program’s crimes, much less prosecute the guilty, or free the framed, or compensate the victims, or rewrite the lies of national history.”

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Torture in the US Prison System: The Endless Punishment of Leonard Peltier | Truthout

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by: Preston Randolph and Dan Battaglia, Truthout | Op-Ed

In June 2006, the Commission on Safety and Abuse in America’s Prisons released “Confronting Confinement,” a 126-page report summarizing its 12-month inquiry into the prison systems. The commission follows up the analysis based on its findings with a list of recommendations. Topping the list of needed improvements is better enforcement of inmates’ right to proper health care and limitations on solitary confinement. Five years after the report’s release and despite its detailed and well-researched studies, inmate abuse continues. More recently, news reports from California’s Pelican Bay Prison amplified the need for change, but after the three-week inmate hunger strike ended, the torture of solitary confinement continues nationwide.

Former Bureau of Prisons (BOP) official Bruce Smith served nearly 20 years at Leavenworth State Penitentiary in Kansas. Smith experienced firsthand the wrongdoings and mistreatment toward Peltier during the decades Peltier spent at Leavenworth.

“It’s obvious they [the FBI and the BOP] have an agenda out against Leonard. What has happened to him is wrong. See, they have the tendency to know where they want to go in a case, and then build their evidence to that point, and that’s exactly what happened to Leonard,” said Smith.

Torture in the US Prison System: The Endless Punishment of Leonard Peltier | Truthout.

Call to Action: For Political Prisoner Leonard Peltier

Author:

Urgent!  Leonard needs a diabetes test kit now!

You may recall that Leonard suffers from diabetes.  To date,
his diabetes has been managed by diet but this is difficult to do
when the prison won’t give Leonard a test kit by which to monitor
his blood glucose level.  Two weeks ago, I wrote to the warden at
Lewisburg asking that Leonard be given a diabetes test kit. I even
offered to purchase an approved kit if the prison cannot provide
one. I haven’t received a response from the warden.

Yesterday, Leonard called–later than the norm. He’s suffering with
a severe headache and other symptoms and is in a bad way. When he
was finally able to get tested at the prison infirmary, his blood
sugar measured 300. The highest blood glucose reading should be
less than 180 mg/dL (and that only one to two hours after eating).

We have to see to it that Leonard gets a diabetes test kit so that
he can control his diabetes.  All supporters are urgently requested
to contact:

Warden
USP Lewisburg
US Penitentiary
2400 Robert F. Miller Drive
Lewisburg, PA  17837
Phone:  570-523-1251
Fax:  570-522-7745
E-mail: LEW/EXECASSISTANT@BOP.GOV

Also contact:

D. Scott Dodrill, Regional Director
Northeast Regional Office
US Custom House
2nd & Chesnut Street
Philadephia, PA  19106
Phone: 215-521-7301
E-mail: NERO/EXECASSISTANT@BOP.GOV

Harley G. Lappin, Director
Federal Bureau of Prisons
320 First Street., NW
Washington, DC 20534
Telephone: 202-307-3198

Be respectful, but firm.  The situation is life threatening.  After
many years of high blood sugar, Leonard is at serious risk for kidney
failure and the need for dialysis, blood vessel damage in the eyes
that can lead to blindness, and nerve damage in the feet that could
lead to the need for amputation. Supporters should also remember
that Leonard already suffers from a heart condition. Heart disease
is, in fact, the number one cause of death in people with diabetes.

Leonard needs our help.  Act now.  Write or fax a letter.  Make a
call. Send an e-mail.  Keep doing it until Leonard gets a diabetes
test kit.

Thank you.

Betty Ann Peltier Solano
Coordinator
Leonard Peltier Defense Offense Committee
PO Box 7488, Fargo, ND  58106
Phone: 701/235-2206
E-mail: contact@whoisleonardpeltier.info
Web: www.whoisleonardpeltier.info

Time to set him free… Because it is the RIGHT thing to do.

Friends of Peltier
http://www.FreePeltierNow.org

Peltier Statement for the 2008 Oglala Commemoration

June 26, 2008

Greetings my relatives,

I say relatives because you are all my family.  I am honored,
greatly honored today that you would listen to my words and come
together in this way so that our future generations’ will not forget
what happened here in this land.
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