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>From: "LPDC" <lpdc@idir.net>
>Subject: Sample Press Release For Feb 6th-Peltier Arrest
>Date: Fri, 28 Jan 2000 13:17:23 -0600
>To: kolahq@skynet.be
>
>Dear Peltier Supporters,
>Below is a sample press release which you can send out to your local media
>sources for February 6 activities.  Here at the office we are gearing up for
>a visit from Nobel Peace Prize Laureate, Rigoberta Menchu Tum who will be
>lobbying in DC and visiting Leonard in prison this February.  We have gotten
>some clues that there is activity around the clemency petition at the White
>House happening, so please keep up the calls to the Clinton Comment Line and
>Reno, because you are having an effect!  Monday, February 7 will be a
>National/International call in day.  Flood the White House Comments line
>with calls to let Clinton know that we don't want to commemorate another
>anniversary of Leonard Peltier's arrest, set him free now!  Thanks!
>---LPDC
>
>Release Date: February 6, 2000
>
>February 6, 2000 Marks Leonard Peltier’s 24th Year In Prison
>Supporters Gear Up For an Upcoming Parole Hearing and A Last Chance At
>Clemency
>
>
>Contact:
>(Add local contact info here if applicable)
>
>The Leonard Peltier Defense Committee 785-842-5774
>
>Exactly 24 years ago today, a Native American man was arrested in Alberta,
>Canada for the murders of two FBI agents on the Pine Ridge Lakota
>Reservation in South Dakota.  Soon afterward, this man would be extradited
>from Canada to the United States with the use of falsified affidavits
>setting the scene for what would become one of the most controversial and
>well known trials of the 20th century.  February 6, 2000 marks Leonard
>Peltier’s 24th year in prison for a crime that millions believe he in fact
>did not commit.  The case of Leonard Peltier has already become an important
>element of modern Native American history in a country whose treatment of
>Native peoples remains a blight on its claim to an immaculate human rights
>record.
>
>Today people are gathered across the country and around the world to
>strategize ways to mount additional pressure on President Clinton, Attorney
>General Janet Reno, the United States Congress, and the United States Parole
>Commission to grant Mr. Peltier’s release from prison.  Mr. Peltier will be
>reviewed for parole May of this year and has a pending Clemency Petition
>with President Clinton.  Locally, (your details can be added here)
>
>Many are wondering what is causing this recent rush of support for Mr.
>Peltier’s freedom to be renewed.  Some say it is the wave of criticism the
>FBI has received for their handling of Waco, Ruby Ridge, and the Geronimo Ji
>Jaga (Pratt) case, all of which have shed considerable light upon the FBI’s
>potential for severe abuse of power.   Others say it is a result of the
>several prestigious human rights groups, human rights advocates, and Native
>organizations such as Amnesty International, the Archbishop Desmond Tutu,
>the National Congress of American Indians, and the Assembly of First Nations
>who have recently taken stronger positions on the case and in doing so have
>increased their activities in support of Mr. Peltier’s release.  Some also
>point to the deterioration of Mr. Peltier’s health as a reason for the
>urgency in winning his freedom.
>
>No matter what the cause may be, the FBI has certainly not taken this new
>wave of support lightly.  The FBI Agents Association and the Society of
>Former Special Agents of the FBI have gone to great lengths to counter these
>efforts by purchasing expensive newspaper and radio ads giving emotional
>accounts of the FBI agents’ deaths and referring to Mr. Peltier as a cold
>blooded murderer and a thug.
>
>What the FBI refuses to talk about is that in fact, their own legal council
>has established on record that they cannot prove who killed the agents or
>what involvement Mr. Peltier may have had in their deaths.  In 1985, after
>being faced with previously withheld evidence on appeal casting serious
>doubt on Mr. Peltier’s guilt, the US prosecutor in the case admitted for the
>first time that he could not prove who killed the agents.  The judge who
>dismissed this appeal on a technicality, would later write a statement
>advocating for Mr. Peltier’s release through a presidential grant of
>Executive Clemency. Yet, years later, Mr. Peltier remains in prison. Will
>Mr. Peltier live the rest of his life in prison, a historical symbol and
>martyr of the ongoing injustice against Native Peoples?  Or, will President
>Clinton take the monumental step of freeing Leonard Peltier, beginning a new
>chapter between the US government and Native Americans at the beginning of
>this new millenium?
>
>
>Call the White House Comments Line Today
>Demand Justice for Leonard Peltier! 202-456-1111
>
>Leonard Peltier Defense Committee
>PO Box 583
>Lawrence, KS 66044
>785-842-5774
>www.freepeltier.org

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