Hey everyone, it’s that time of the month again! NYC ABC and Page One Collective are back to remind all of you wonderful, exhausted, burnt out people that there are political prisoners! They need our support and friendship! An easy way to provide that is to write letters!
This week we encourage everyone to write to Daniel Hale. Daniel Hale is a whistleblower who was indicted for allegedly disclosing classified documents about the U.S. military’s assassination program. On March 31, 2021, he pleaded guilty to a single count under the Espionage Act, and on July 27, 2021, Daniel was sentenced to 45 months in prison.
“Ahead of his sentencing this week, Hale filed an 11-page handwritten letter to the court detailing the motivations behind his actions. In vivid detail, Hale recalled his own experience locating targets for American drone strikes. By some estimates, U.S. drone operations abroad, conducted by both the military and the CIA, have killed between 9,000 and 17,000 people since 2004, including as many as 2,200 children and multiple U.S. citizens. Those estimates, however, undercount the true cost of remote American warfare — as Hale noted in his letter to the court last week, the U.S. military has a practice of labeling all individuals killed in such operations as “enemies killed in action” unless proven otherwise.“
Please take the time to write a letter to Daniel Hale (and share a photo of your completed envelopes with us online):
Daniel Hale #26069-075 USP Marion P.O. Box 1000 Marion, IL 62959
On January 31st, the New Jersey Supreme Court heard oral arguments in the state’s leading parole case, that of 85-year-old Sundiata Acoli. The oral arguments were recorded and will be released at a later date. Click the link below to view our live-tweeting. The Court will decide if the parole board violated the law by denying Sundiata Acoli’s petition for release. Read the live tweets.
Sundiata has been imprisoned since 1973. Despite being eligible for parole since 1993, the parole board has denied Sundiata’s petition for release eight times; each time claiming that he was a substantial risk to public safety.
The New Jersey Attorney General argued on behalf of the parole board. In addition to the compelling oral argument given by lead counsel, Bruce Afran, persuasive oral arguments were made by counsel representing three of the seven legal teams that filed amicus briefs last fall to support Sundiata’s release. Four of the seven briefs focus on parole board bias, decision irregularities and judicial oversight. It is believed that Sundiata has received the most supporting amicus briefs in the history of New Jersey.
This could be Sundiata’s last chance for freedom after serving nearly 50 years: his health is declining and deteriorating due to early stage dementia, glaucoma and post-COVID-19 complications.
We are calling for community members nationwide, allied organizations, and institutions to support the release of Sundiata Acoli by signing and sharing the petition demanding New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy release him immediately. Our new goal is 25,000! Sign the petition at https://campaigns.organizefor.org/petitions/bring-sundiata-home
Send a Postcard Bring Sundiata Acoli Home! Send a physical postcard to NJ Governor Phil Murphy. It takes less than 2 minutes to fill out the form and WE will send the postcard in the mail. Click the buttons below and share! #BringSundiataHome SEND A POSTCARD
In 2 weeks, on the 36th anniversary of his capture, join the #FreeMutuluNow Campaign for our Black Love in Action for Dr. Mutulu Shakur weekend! We are calling on all those who believe in love, justice & human rights to demand his immediate release.
Kick-off the Black Love in Action for Dr. Mutulu Shakur weekend with our virtual rally on Feb. 11th at 7PM EST. We’re inviting our people to educate, agitate & organize to #FreeMutuluNOW!
Elder Native activist Leonard Peltier’s continued unjust imprisonment while positive for COVID-19 is a death sentence. Demand his immediate release NOW!
White House Press Secretary Jennifer Psaki was unable to answer Huffington Post reporter Jennifer Bendery’s question on the White House response to demands that Leonard Peltier be immediately released. Obviously, President Biden is not communicating with her about what action he will take. This is an urgent situation, so we must take action now!
Be sure to contact Jennifer Psaki on Monday, February 7, 2022 to demand Leonard’s immediate release: Email: [email protected]; Twitter = @PressSec
Peltier was convicted of aiding and abetting the killing of two FBI agents during a shootout on South Dakota’s Pine Ridge Reservation in 1975 while a member of the American Indian Movement. He was captured in Canada on Feb. 6, 1976 and illegally extradited to the U.S. based on false affidavits. Leonard has always maintained his innocence and is the longest-held Native American political prisoner in the United States. His lawyer, former federal judge Kevin Sharp, says Peltier’s case was riddled with misconduct, including witness coercion and withholding of exculpatory evidence. Peltier’s health, age and unfair trial make him the perfect candidate for executive clemency. “The legal remedies are no longer available,” says Sharp on Peltier’s case. “Now it’s time for the [Bureau of Prisons] and the president of the United States to fix this and send him home.”
“The big misconception about this is that Leonard Peltier was convicted of shooting two agents. He was not. They had to drop that, because the evidence they had presented that he had shot two agents was false. It was perjury. It was manufactured. So they had to drop that case and come up with a new theory, and that theory was aiding and abetting. And when Leonard talked about not being able to put on his defense, one of the things that Judge Benson said — when he excluded the evidence related to the misconduct in the reign of terror, was that the FBI is not on trial here. But once he did that, you have to put all of this in context. That’s why Judge Heaney, who was on the 8th Circuit, who heard Leonard’s appeal — and although he upheld the conviction, later came out himself in favor of commuting this sentence — said the federal government has to take responsibility for what happened here. And absolutely, they do. Context matters. But the lack of evidence that this man killed someone also matters. And so it’s time. We’re now 46 years later. We’ve got a 77-year-old man with multiple health issues, and his tribe, the Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa, saying, ‘We will embrace him. Please send him home to us.’ And that’s what I’m asking the president to do: Send him home.”
Organized by (list in formation): NYC Free Peltier • Jericho Movement • ProLibertad Freedom Campaign
The ailing 77-year-old Native American rights activist has been pleading for help in prison and was never given a coronavirus booster shot. By Jennifer Bendery 01/28/2022 Huffington Post
Leonard Peltier, the ailing 77-year-old Native American rights activist who has been pleading for help from prison amid coronavirus lockdowns and still hasn’t received a booster shot, has tested positive for COVID-19.
“Today, Leonard tested positive for COVID,” Peltier’s attorney Kevin Sharp told HuffPost late Friday. “We are all very concerned, as is Leonard. He wanted people to know that he sends his love and appreciation for the years everyone has fought for him. And should he make it through this, he intends to continue speaking out for Native rights.”ADVERTISEMENT
Peltier began feeling “like shit” on Thursday and had a “rough night” of painful and persistent coughing, Sharp said. “He told me, ‘I hope this is just a bad cold, but I have never had a cold like this before.’”
Peltier has now been placed in quarantine for 10 days.
Peltier has been in prison for 45 years without any evidence that he committed a crime. The FBI and U.S. Attorney Office charged him with the 1975 murders of two FBI agents during a shootout on a Native American reservation ― something he has long said he didn’t do, even when it meant he could have been paroled if he’d said he did. His trial was riddled with misconduct, and even the U.S. attorney who helped put Peltier in prison decades ago is now pleading with President Joe Biden to grant him clemency because, he says, federal officials never had evidence that he committed a crime.
“Enough is enough. It’s time to send Leonard Peltier home to the care of an appropriate medical facility and the love and support of his family on the Turtle Mountain Reservation,” he said. “His unconstitutional conviction should not turn into a de facto death sentence.”
Peltier told HuffPost last week that his prison facility’s prolonged COVID-19 lockdowns and failure to provide him and other inmates with booster shots has left him ― and likely others ― unbearably isolated and preparing for death. He is particularly vulnerable to COVID given his serious health problems, which include diabetes and an abdominal aortic aneurysm.
“I’m in hell,” he told HuffPost. “Left alone and without attention is like a torture chamber for the sick and old.”
Leonard Peltier, 77, meets the criteria for having his prison sentence commuted, says the chair of the Senate Indian Affairs Committee.
Sen. Brian Schatz (D-Hawaii), the chair of the Senate Indian Affairs Committee, on Wednesday urged Biden to commute Peltier’s sentence and send him home, given his age, illness and time served.ADVERTISEMENT
“I commend your administration’s commitment to righting past wrongs in our criminal justice system,” Schatz wrote to Biden. “In continuing that work as you consider recommendations for individuals to receive clemency, I write to urge you to grant a commutation of Leonard Peltier’s sentence.”
Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.), the former longtime chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee and the longest-serving member of the Senate, has also called on Biden to send Peltier home.
A spokesperson for the Federal Bureau of Prisons did not respond to a request for comment earlier Friday on why Peltier had not been transferred to in-home confinement given his age, declining health and time served.
Elder Political Prisoner Leonard Peltier contracts Covid 19 at USP Coleman 1 as BOP fails to follow CDC Covid Guidelines. ILPDC Demands Covid Release for Leonard Peltier
For IMMEDIATE RELEASE January 29, 2022
For More Information Contact: Carol Gokee 715-209-4453; or Jean Roach 605-415-3127: Kevin Sharp 615-415-0797
(COLEMAN, FL) On Friday January 28, 2022, Leonard Peltier tested positive for the SARS-CoV-2 (Covid 19) virus at the United States Penitentiary at Coleman, FL (USP Coleman 1).
Leonard Peltier (Anishinaabe/Dakota) of the American Indian Movement (AIM) is an internationally known political prisoner whose release has been called for by scores of Congressional representatives, the Dali-Lama, Nelson Mandela, Bishop Desmond Tutu, and hundreds of luminaries as well of millions of people around the globe. Recently Senator Brian Schatz (D-HI) Chair of the Senate Indian Affairs Committee and Senator Patrick Leahy (D-VT) the Pro Tem of the United States Senate joined those calls for Presidential Clemency/Commutation for Leonard Peltier.
Leonard Peltier was unjustly convicted in the deaths of two FBI agents in a June 26, 1975, shootout in Oglala, SD between members of the American Indian Movement, defending the Oglala community and the FBI. Peltier’s two co-defendants were acquitted by reason of self-defense. Peltier, who was later extradited from Canada under questionable circumstances was tried separate. Peltier’s trial was replete with prosecutorial misconduct, falsified testimony, fabricated evidence, even the autopsy presented to the jury was done by an examiner who had never seen the bodies of the two agents. The former US Attorney for the Northern District of Iowa, James Reynolds, who supervised the post-trial sentencing and appeals admitted they “shaved a few corners” and “we could not prove Leonard Peltier personally committed any crime on the Pine Ridge Reservation” in his letter to US President Joe Biden calling for Peltier’s release.
Peltier is a 77-year-old inmate with a host of co-morbidities that should, according to CDC Guidelines, have prioritized him for a Covid Booster Shot. CDC guidelines call for booster shots at seven months, yet 11 months after Peltier received his Covid 19 vaccine, he had not received a booster shot. Visitors to USP Coleman 1 have noted the facility is not mandating vaccines for its guards or staff, Guards and staff were seen both without masks and improperly wearing masks, social distancing was neither encouraged nor enforced and booster shots had not, until recently, been available to any inmate at USP Coleman 1. Both the ILPDC and mutual aid organizations offered to donate N-95 masks for every inmate at Coleman were denied.
The United States Department of Justice, through the Attorney General issued guidelines for Covid Release to Home Confinement for inmates who were elderly and or had compromised immune system or Co-morbidities on March 26th and April 3rd, 2020. Leonard Peltier at 77 years old with a host of comorbidities including diabetes, hypertension, heart condition, and an aortic aneurysm undeniably meets those conditions. Furthermore, his home community on the Turtle Mountain Reservation in North Dakota continues to request his return to his home community.
Now due to the reckless disregard of the United States Bureau of Prisons in failing to follow CDC Guidelines for Correctional and Detention Facilities (Correctional and Detention Facilities | CDC) has caused Mr. Peltier to face a virus that could end his life.
The ILPDC is demanding the United States Bureau of Prisons follow the guidance provided by the US Justice Department and release Leonard Peltier on Home Confinement to the Turtle Mountain Reservation. The ILPDC believes as former US Attorney James Reynolds wrote to US President Joe Biden, enough is enough. Leonard has suffered in prison for 46 years and now due to the inactions of the facility has caught a deadly virus.
The ILPDC Calls upon our family, relatives, friends, and supporters around the world to pray for Leonard’s health but to also take action by demanding their Senator calls upon the Warden at USP Coleman 1 and the Bureau of Prisons to IMMEDIATELY Release Leonard Peltier to home confinement. While he may currently need medical attention there is no question that his relatives at Turtle Mountain will endeavor to care for Leonard Peltier rather than the wanton indifference, he has been shown at USP Coleman as evidenced by his contracting this pandemic disease.
In November 2020 a series of coordinated raids against anarchist website 325.nostate.net were executed by Counter-Terrorism cops in the UK as part of “Operation Adream.” Several properties in the South-West of England were searched and one person, Toby Shone, was arrested and charged under the Terrorist Act. Toby was originally charged with providing a service enabling others to access terrorist publications contrary to section 2 of the Terrorism Act 2006, fundraising for terrorist purposes contrary to section 15 of the Terrorism Act 2000, and two counts of possession of information likely to be useful to a terrorist contrary to section 58 of the Terrorism Act 2000. He pleaded not guilty to these charges earlier last year and was due to stand trial at Bristol Crown Court on October 6th, 2021. However, with no evidence to put before the court, the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) was forced to drop these charges on October 1st, 2021.
The attack on 325.nostate.net is a landmark attempt by the state to silence dissent and radical critical thinking. It can be seen as part of the general crackdown in the UK against protest, counter-information and alternative thinking and lifestyles as evidenced by the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill 2021 (which resulted in the Kill the Bill protests), and the Covert Human Intelligence Sources (Criminal Conduct) Act 2021, which extends the powers of spy cops and the reforms of the Judicial Reviews procedure. The investigation into 325 continues and cops continue to harass and attempt to intimidate people.
Toby was sentenced to 3 years 9 months in prison for 8 drug offences at Bristol Crown Court on October 13th, 2021 after Terrorism charges were dropped. The ‘drugs’ were psychedelics and medicinal plants (LSD, DMT, cannabis, THC oil, MDMA and magic mushrooms) found at two of the four properties raided by counter-terror cops in the UK South-West on November 18th, 2020 in their hunt for the administrator of 325.nostate.net.
Toby is in good spirits and remains strong. Join us in sending him notes of solidarity at this month’s online letter-writing event on Monday, January 31st at 6:30 pm! We will play an audio recording from Toby in his own words. If you are unable to make it, please drop him an email via emailaprisoner.com or send letters to:
Note: The current cost of postage from the U.S. to the UK is $1.30 if mailing from home. We also encourage sending birthday greetings to political prisoners with birthdays in February: Veronza Bowers (the 4th), Kamau Sadiki (the 19th), and Oso Blanco (the 26th).
From NYC ABC We’ve finished the latest version of the NYC ABC “Illustrated Guide to Political Prisoners and Prisoners of War” and it’s available for viewing (and download). This update includes updated mini-bios, photos, and address changes for several prisoners. Unfortunately, we are adding a prisoner to the guide this month–whistleblower Daniel Hale.
Leonard Peltier, the Native American rights activist whom the FBI put behind bars decades ago without any evidence that he committed a crime, tells HuffPost that his facility’s prolonged COVID-19 lockdowns and failure to provide at least some inmates with booster shots has left him ― and likely others ― unbearably isolated and preparing for death.
“I’m in hell,” Peltier said in a Friday statement, “and there is no way to deal with it but to take it as long as you can.”
Peltier, who is 77 and has serious health problems including diabetes and an abdominal aortic aneurysm, said “fear and stress” from the prison’s intense coronavirus lockdowns are taking a toll on everyone, including staff. He described conditions like having next to no human contact or access to phones sometimes for weeks, no access to regular showers or substantial food, and not even the ability to look out a window or have fresh air.
“Left alone and without attention is like a torture chamber for the sick and old,” he said.
The Coleman facility has been in its latest COVID lockdown since Jan. 11, according to Peltier’s attorney, Kevin Sharp. It’s been imposing dayslong and sometimes weekslong COVID lockdowns dating back to March 2021. Some of the longer stretches were March 6-15, June 14-30, and Dec. 12-Jan. 4, said Sharp.
Peltier says it’s not just mentally excruciating to endure constant lockdowns. He said he and others on his cellblock still haven’t gotten their COVID booster shots. They should have been offered them by now; all people incarcerated in federal prisons gained access to the initial round of vaccines last May, which means it’s well past the six-month window for getting boosted to stave off potential serious illness or death.
In Peltier’s case, he got his first COVID-19 vaccination shot in January 2021 and his second in May 2021, according to Sharp, which means he was due for his booster in November. Peltier asks the prison’s medical staff “every chance he gets” when he and others in his cellblock will get their booster shots, said Sharp, and they always say they don’t know.
“They are turning an already harsh environment into an asylum,” he said.
Leonard Peltier, the Native American rights activist who shouldn’t even be in prison, says the “fear and stress” tied to constant COVID-19 lockdowns in his prison is breaking him and others.
It’s hard to know how many people within the massive federal prison system have not received their booster shots. There are currently 153,855 people incarcerated in federal prisons, of which 135,100 are in facilities operated by the Federal Bureau of Prisons.
Donald Murphy, a spokesman for the Federal Bureau of Prisons, said the department isn’t making data publicly available relating to inmates’ booster shot rates. Instead, he pointed to the department’s COVID resource webpage, which includes data on the total number of COVID-19 vaccination shots that have been given to inmates and staff since last year.
“We are not breaking this number down to reflect booster shots only,” he said.
The Bureau of Prisons has received a total of 316,714 doses and administered 287,681 doses of the COVID-19 vaccine to staff and inmates since it became available last May, according to its website. Those numbers include the two-dose vaccines offered by Pfizer and Moderna, and the one-dose vaccine offered by Johnson & Johnson.
As for the conditions Peltier described at the Coleman facility, Murphy declined to comment on “anecdotal allegations” or on “conditions of confinement for any particular inmate.”
He did say that the Coleman facility “is currently administering COVID booster vaccinations for inmates,” despite the fact that Peltier has not been offered one and has seen no signs of it being offered to other inmates on his cellblock.
Murphy also said the Bureau of Prisons follows Centers for Disease Control and Prevention guidance with regard to COVID-19 quarantine and medical isolation procedures.
Here’s Peltier’s full statement on the conditions inside Coleman, provided to HuffPost:
COVID has turned Coleman Prison back to the Dark Ages. I remember a time at Marion USP when I was put in solitary for so long, when 72 hours could make you start to forget who you were. I once wrote down who I was on the concrete floor under my bed, so if I forgot, I could read it back to myself. I traded my last cigarette for a pencil. I’d rush to the door when a guard left the meager plate of food, just to see a glimpse of another human being — even if it was one that hated me, it was another human and good for my mind for a minute.
I’m in hell, and there is no way to deal with it but to take it as long as you can. I cling to the belief that people are out there doing what they can to change our circumstances in here. The fear and stress are taking a toll on everyone, including the staff. You can see it in their faces and hear it in their voices. The whole institution is on total LOCKDOWN.
In and out of lockdown last year at least meant a shower every third day, a meal beyond a sandwich wet with a little peanut butter — but now with COVID for an excuse, nothing. No phone, no window, no fresh air — no humans to gather — no love ones voice. No relief. Left alone and without attention is like a torture chamber for the sick and old.
Where are our human rights activists? You are hearing from me, and with me, many desperate men and women! They are turning an already harsh environment into an asylum, and for many who did not receive a death penalty, we are now staring down the face of one! Help me, my brothers and sisters, help me my good friends.
Peltier is America’s longest-serving political prisoner. He’s been behind bars for 45 years for the 1975 murders of two FBI agents during a shootout on a Native American reservation ― something he has long said he didn’t do, even when it meant he could have been paroled if he said he did. His trial was riddled with misconduct and even the U.S. attorney who helped put Peltier in prison so long ago is now pleading with President Joe Biden to grant him clemency because, he says, federal officials never had evidence that he committed a crime.
His imprisonment has drawn protests from an astounding mix of international human rights leaders including Pope Francis, the Dalai Lama, Mother Teresa, Nelson Mandela and Coretta Scott King. Elected tribal leaders and the National Congress of American Indians have also passed resolutions urging clemency.
Biden is likely Peltier’s last chance at freedom before he dies in prison.
Write Leonard: Leonard Peltier #89637-132 USP Coleman I PO Box1033 Coleman, Fl 33521
WHAT: Political Prisoner Letter-Writing WHEN: Tuesday, January 25, 2022 WHERE: from wherever in the Matrix you happen to be COST: Free
It’s hard to maintain hope as the pandemic rages on. We see the logical progression of capitalism before our eyes: crises accelerated by the pandemic that range from healthcare failures to food scarcity. As anarchists we know that to rely on the state is to be perpetually disappointed, yet this pandemic puts us in a paradoxical situation that we must contend with. One thing we have to be grateful for is our freedom in this overly-surveilled police state. No matter how rough and tough things get here on the outside, we know the conditions in prisons are worse now more than ever. One way to share some light with the folks stuck in cages is to write letters and maintain pen pal relationships. Given the current status of COVID, we continue to encourage folks to write from home with the hope we can resume public events in the near future.
This week we invite you to write to one of the most well known us-held political prisoners: Mumia Abu-Jamal, an African-American writer and journalist, author of six books and hundreds of columns and articles, who has spent the last 30 years on Pennsylvania’s death row and now general population. Mumia was wrongfully convicted and sentenced for the murder of a Philadelphia cop. The demand for a new trial and freedom is supported by heads of state, Nobel laureates, distinguished human rights organizations, scholars, religious leaders, artists, scientists and, as important, millions of folks like you and us. For more information, be sure to visit bringmumiahome.com.
Please take the time to write a letter to Mumia Abu-Jamal (and share a photo of your completed envelopes with us online):
Smart Communications/PA DOC Mumia Abu-Jamal #AM8335 SCI Mahanoy PO Box 33028 St Petersburg, Fl 33733
