{"id":38986,"date":"2024-07-29T00:03:14","date_gmt":"2024-07-29T04:03:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/indianz.com\/News\/?p=38986"},"modified":"2024-07-29T10:05:31","modified_gmt":"2024-07-29T14:05:31","slug":"albert-bender-leonard-peltier-denied-another-chance-at-freedom","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/indianz.com\/News\/2024\/07\/29\/albert-bender-leonard-peltier-denied-another-chance-at-freedom\/","title":{"rendered":"Albert Bender: Leonard Peltier denied another chance at freedom"},"content":{"rendered":" \"Leonard<\/a>
Holding a banner reading \u201cEnough Is Enough \u2013 Free Leonard Peltier\u201d supporters of the imprisoned American Indian Movement activist rally for his freedom in front of the White House on September 12, 2023. Photo by Indianz.Com (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0)<\/a><\/figcaption>\r\n
Capitalist judgment, racist justice: Leonard Peltier denied freedom again<\/div>\r\n
Monday, July 29, 2024<\/div>\r\n
By Albert Bender<\/div>\r\n
People's World<\/div>\r\n
peoplesworld.org<\/A><\/div>\r\n

<\/P>\r\nThere is a saying that reverberated throughout Indian Country when Leonard Peltier was convicted in 1977: \u201cIf the government can\u2019t get the Indian they want, then they get the Indian they can.\u201d

<\/P>\r\nThe same rank injustice that surrounded his imprisonment and condition then continues today. On July 2, the United States Parole Commission denied the legendary Indigenous activist his latest bid for freedom. Peltier is the longest-held political prisoner in the U.S. prison system, having been incarcerated for the last 47 years.

<\/P>\r\nPeltier was framed up in the slaying of two FBI agents on the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota in 1975 and has been jailed for almost a half century over the charges. He now has life-threatening health problems at 79 years old.

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\n\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t\"\u2018Release\t\t\t\t<\/a>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\n\t
\n\t\t\n\t\t\t\u2018Release Leonard Now\u2019: Rally demands President Biden free imprisoned American Indian Movement activist\t\t<\/a>\n\t<\/div>\n\t
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A large crowd rallied outside the White House, calling on President Joe Biden to free imprisoned American Indian Movement activist Leonard Peltier.<\/p>\n\t\t<\/a>\n\t<\/div>\n\t

\n\t\t\"Indianz.Com\"\t\tIndianz.Com\t<\/div>\n<\/div>\r\n

<\/P>\r\nHis so-called conviction in 1977 was fraught with prosecutorial misconduct, including the coercion of witnesses, the withholding of exculpatory evidence, fake affidavits, and, most outrageously, the hiding of a ballistics report that established that the bullets that killed the agents did not come from Peltier\u2019s gun. Peltier is serving two life sentences.

<\/P>\r\nPeltier was a stalwart activist of the American Indian Movement (AIM) in the 1970s. AIM was an Indigenous civil rights organization dedicated to upholding tribal sovereignty and fighting discrimination and police brutality, among other issues confronting Native people. There was never a time that AIM was called upon that it did not respond. Peltier gave his heart and soul in fighting for Indigenous rights and is emblematic of racist punishment dispensed under the merciless capitalist justice system.

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