Leonard Peltier
President Joe Biden is likely the last hope for the ailing, 79-year-old Native American rights activist to ever go home.
The Native American rights activist, whom the U.S. government put in prison nearly 50 years ago after a trial rife with misconduct, is getting a parole hearing.
We must “hold our government accountable when we see a case of injustice,” they said of the Indigenous activist who has been in prison for nearly 50 years.
Indigenous leaders and human rights advocates are making the long-imprisoned Native activist's freedom a 2024 election priority.
WHAT'S HAPPENING
“You’ve become complicit in this injustice for Indian Country,” charged Fawn Sharp, president of the National Congress of American Indians.
The president hailed Belafonte's "legacy of outspoken advocacy," which included his fight to free Leonard Peltier. Biden could make it happen, but hasn't.
“The United States has kept me locked up because I am American Indian,” said the ailing Indigenous rights activist who Biden could free, but hasn’t.
“Nothing is more emblematic of the mistreatment of American Indians and the uneven hand of the criminal justice system” than Peltier's imprisonment, they said.
"The power to exercise mercy in this case lies solely within your discretion," the Democratic senators said of the long-imprisoned Indigenous rights activist.
“I started, you know, getting close to various people. And they kept going to jail,” said the musician and advocate for freeing the Indigenous rights activist.