They gave a unanimous vote so that the considered political prisoner would be declared Solidarity Day on February 24, and they ask Biden to release him
by Araceli Martínez
The San Francisco Board of Supervisors declared Feb. 24 as the Day of Solidarity with Leonard Peltier, a pillar of the American Indian Movement who was sentenced to life in prison, for the murder of two agents of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) in an incident occurred in June 1975 on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota.
For his followers around the world and in the country, including San Francisco supervisors, Peltier is innocent and is a political prisoner who has unjustly spent more than 4 decades in prison for a crime he did not commit and for which he was convicted in a rigged trial.
Four San Francisco supervisors filed a resolution urging the federal government to release Peltier and grant him clemency after years of unjust confinement as a political prisoner.
The resolution was introduced by Supervisor Hilary Ronen, but Supervisors Dean Preston, Gordon Mar and Aaron Peskin asked to be added as co-authors. It was voted for unanimously by 10 of the 11 members of the Board of Supervisors. The only absentee was Supervisor Matt Haney.
At one point in the resolution, former federal judge Kevin Sharp declared Peltier’s innocence on the grounds that he was denied his constitutional rights to a fair trial, and called for his release from federal prison.
It was Antonio Gonzales of the American Indian Movement Western Chapter and the American Indian Cultural District who presented the resolution for Supervisor Ronen’s consideration.
A copy of the approved resolution will be delivered to President Joe Biden, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Senate Majority Leader Charles Schumer and Attorney General Merrick Garland.
Peltier has been in Florida’s Coleman federal prison for 45 years, despite worldwide calls for his release.
At 77 years old, on Jan. 28, he was diagnosed with Covid, which sounded the alarm, since it can have fatal consequences if one takes into account that he suffers from severe health problems such as diabetes, aortic aneurysm, untreated kidney disease, high blood pressure, and recently had open heart surgery.
Jean Roach, co-director of the Leonard Peltier International Defense Committee, said, “We demand that he be given hospitalization to ensure a greater chance of survival and recovery. We are alarmed that he could face a sentence of wrongful death. Leonard Peltier needs to be hospitalized, not just isolated in prison.”
San Francisco Poet Laureate Alejandro Murguía said freeing Peltier is a matter of morality and justice because there were many inconsistencies and contradictions in the trial that found him guilty.
“The Department of Justice carried out acts outside the law, threatened witnesses to lie and there were many false accusations, which were lies.”
He emphasized that everyone who participated said that it was not fair and legal how he was judged.
“An impartial and objective trial was not carried out. The FBI and the Department of Justice do not know who was responsible for the deaths of the two FBI agents.”
What the poet questions the most is how they can detain Peltier for 46 years without being guilty.
“It is a moral issue. He is 76 years old. He is sick with Covid. It is very unfair and a lack of morals that they do not let him go free”.
But he also considered that it is an issue that impacts the image of the United States.
“Everyone has made demands and petitions to be released, and we continue with the same thing. Obama did not act. He is an American Indian. This is another injustice that is added to all those that have been done against the indigenous communities.”
Murguía indicated that in those years in which Peltier was convicted of the murder of two FBI agents, that police force was very corrupt. “They attacked progressive groups like the Black Panthers, the Brown Berets without authorization.”
And he went further by wondering how much it could cost Biden to sign his release due to Covid. “Many prisoners have been released because they have Covid. It is up to the president to show courage to do justice. He wants to be a human rights leader, but how about human rights in the United States.”
He noted that Feb. 24 was a day of solidarity with Peltier to cry out for his freedom and denounce 46 years of injustice and prejudice against a leader convicted with false witnesses.
“They want to continue punishing him. What justice is that? Freeing him means demonstrating the payment of a debt to the human rights of indigenous people and against the corruption of the FBI.”
Added to the cry of the poet Murguía is a growing chorus of voices asking President Biden to free Peltier. On Jan. 26, Hawaii Democratic Senator Brian Schatz, chairman of the Senate Indian Affairs Committee, wrote to President Biden and said, “I am writing to urge you to grant Leonard Peltier a commutation of sentence.”
James H. Reynolds, who was the prosecutor in Peltier’s trial, wrote to Biden on July 9, 2021: “I am writing to you today from a position unusual for a former prosecutor: to plead with you to commute a man’s sentence to who I helped put behind bars… I have come to realize that the prosecution and continued incarceration of Peltier was and is unfair.”
In recent weeks, members of Congress and the International Indian Treaty Council have called on President Biden to grant Peltier clemency and immediate release.
A national petition on Change.org calls for Peltier’s hospitalization and release: Chng.it/xChWLc5vT6
