[Pnews] Leonard Peltier United Nations Urgent Appeal

[Prisoner News]

Greetings,

Please find attached a press release regarding Mr. Leonard Peltier's 
health condition and efforts to secure necessary medical care currently 
being refused to Mr. Peltier, who is locked down 22-24 hours per day. 
During this month of April when the United Nations Permanent Forums on 
Indigenous Issues and People of African Descent, and the 79th Session of 
the Committee Against Torture (CAT) convene, an urgent request for 
communications to the UN Human Rights Council, Special Rapporteur on 
Torture, Special Procedures has been submitted on behalf of elder 
Indigenous prisoner, Mr. Leonard Peltier. Unjustly incarcerated for 48 
years and now going blind, the United States is denying Mr. Peltier 
critical medical care. Such medical neglect runs afoul of domestic and 
international torture provisions, and The United Nations Standard 
Minimum Rules for the Treatment of Prisoners, otherwise known as the 
Nelson Mandela Rules.

Please contact us at 1.800.901.4413 or info at freeleonardpeltiernow.org 
<mailto:info at freeleonardpeltiernow.org>.

Thank you.

Not one more year.

____________________________

On April 12, 2024, Jenipher Jones Esq., a lead attorney for Leonard 
Peltier’s post-conviction legal efforts, filed a Request for 
Communications with the United Nations Special Rapporteur on Torture and 
the United Nations Special Procedures group, asking for communications 
to the United States regarding the denial of urgently needed medical 
care and an immediate investigation of the abuses and human rights 
violations habitually taking place in the nation’s prisons.

Mr. Peltier, nearly 80 years old, has now been incarcerated in federal 
prison for 48 years related to a crime he didn’t commit. He is an elder 
with serious medical issues, including a heart condition, kidney 
disease, diabetes, high blood pressure, degenerative joint disease, 
painful injuries to his jaw, and recent vision loss. Each of these 
conditions requires immediate and ongoing medical care. However, the 
Bureau of Prisons (BOP) is not properly addressing Leonard’s medical 
issues. Leonard needs to see an eye specialist without further delay and 
receive medical treatment for his other ailments.

Furthermore, medical professionals have already determined that USP 
Coleman I, a maximumsecurity prison on persistent extremely restrictive 
lockdowns, where Leonard is currently incarcerated, cannot adequately 
meet his medical needs. This neglect puts him at serious risk of harm 
and amounts to a sentence of Death by Incarceration (DBI).
Attorney Jones states, “The UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention has 
already expressed that Mr. Peltier’s incarceration by the U.S. Federal 
Bureau of Prisons constitutes an arbitrary detention under relevant 
international provisions. We hope that the Special Procedures declare 
similar violations of international law with respect to Leonard’s 
medical care and conditions of confinement. The denial of medical care 
to prisoners not only violates the 8th Amendment to the U.S. 
Constitution and the domestic disability provisions, but also the 
Convention Against Torture and the Mandela Rules on the treatment of 
prisoners.”

Mr. Peltier’s attorney Moira Meltzer-Cohen states, “Like many older 
people, Mr. Peltier suffers from multiple serious and chronic medical 
conditions that have become mutually exacerbating. For Mr. Peltier, 
however, these health risks are further compounded by the prison 
environment, which exposes him to conditions ranging from unreliable 
access to cleaning supplies to serious violence, while also severely 
limiting his access to medical care.”
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Leonard Peltier is an elder Native American human rights activist, 
artist, author, citizen of the Anishinaabe and Dakota/Lakota Nations, 
survivor of Indian boarding school, and a political prisoner/POW. The 
U.S. government framed and imprisoned Leonard when he was active in the 
American Indian Movement (AIM). Despite old age and poor health, the 
U.S. government holds Leonard in a high-security prison. People all over 
the world, and even federal agents who helped convict him, demand 
Leonard Peltier's release.

A close up of a card Description automatically generated

*Dawn Lawson
Personal Assistant Leonard Peltier
Executive Assistant Jenipher Jones, Esq.
Secretary Leonard Peltier Ad Hoc Committee*

*800-901-4413
dawn at allfiredup.blue
www.freeleonardpeltiernow.org <mailto:dawn at allfiredup.blue>*
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