65th birthday of Leonard Peltier: Human rights campaign outside US Embassy in Berlin: Indian civil rights activist, an innocent man in prison for 33 years – Please grant Leonard Peltier his freedom, President Obama!

With a symbolic almost man-high birthday-cake made of papier maché the Society for Threatened Peoples (GfbV) appealed on Friday for the 65th birthday of Leonard Peltier in Berlin to President Obama to pardon the Indian civil rights activist. "Innocent in prison for 33 years: Please grant freedom to Leonard Peltier”. This was the request on the large banner carried by the human rights workers. Peltier will be 65 years old on Saturday (12.09.2009). Following a stroke affecting one eye he is almost blind and suffering seriously from diabetes. The civil rights activist was arrested and sentenced for the murder of two FBI agents in the Pine Ridge Reservation of the Lakota Sioux in South Dakota to life-long imprisonment. Ballistic investigations show however that the deadly shots were not fired from his weapon. A supposed eye-witness withdrew her testimony.

"Prominent people like the late Nazi-hunter Simon Wiesenthal or the Nobel Prize-winner Nelson Mandela and Rigoberta Menchú and hundreds of thousands of concerned people throughout the world have spoken out for Mr. Peltier to be pardoned”, says the appeal to Obama of the GfbV chair, Tilman Zülch, who handed the letter to the Embassy during the human rights campaign. This letter also emphasised the humanitarian work of Peltier, who has been active as an artist during his long imprisonment.: "He has donated his pictures for charitable causes like women’s refuge houses, programmes for fighting the misuse of alcohol and drugs or scholarships for young Indians and he has received many awards, such as the International Human Rights Prize of the Spanish Human Rights Commission.”

Since the Parole Commission turned down the application of the human rights activist on 21st August 2009, his only hope is now with President Obama. He could not apply again for release before 2024, when he would be 80. In the light of his bad health he will possibly not reach this age.