Free Leonard Peltier: Indigenous Rights Advocates Take Fight For Clemency to the United Nations
Tag 24, 10/18/23: “Calls for the release of imprisoned Indigenous freedom fighter Leonard Peltier resounded at the 139th session of the United Nations Human Rights Committee.
Expanding Indigenous rights and ending extreme sentencing practices were central themes at this year’s review of the United States by the UN Human Rights Committee, with the case of Leonard Peltier, the country’s longest-held political prisoner, featuring prominently in the proceedings.
A member of the Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa, Peltier was taken into US custody after he was convicted of killing two FBI agents in a shootout on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota in June 1975. He was sentenced to two terms of life imprisonment and is currently incarcerated in a maximum-security facility in Coleman, Florida.”