INVITATION: Solemn Vigil "Before Donald Trump comes: Please free Leonard Peltier, President Obama!"

Thursday, November 17th 2016, between 1:30 pm and 5 pm on the eastern part of Washingtonplatz in Berlin. 

Attention photographers: The STP will be there with an installation of a huge hourglass and many alarm clocks which symbolizes both the expiring tenure of Obama as well as the ending lifetime of the Native American civil rights activist. 

Coming Thursday the Society for Threatened Peoples (STP) will emphasize their plea to President Barack Obama with a solemn vigil on the eastern part of Washingtonplatz in Berlin: Obama must not end his tenure without pardoning the for 40 years innocently imprisoned civil rights activist Leonard Peltier. „Mr. President, please have mercy on the Native American civil rights activist and set him free, before Donald Trump takes up office” calls the Human Rights organization on the US President, who´s tenure ends on January 20th 2017. „Peltier´s lifetime is coming to an end. Please, do not let him die in prison.” 

Peltier (72) has been in prison for the last four decades while being innocent, far away from family and friends. He is being accused of having murdered two FBI agents who died in 1975 during a shooting on the Pine Ridge reservation in South Dakota (USA). He was sentenced to two life sentences for murder. However, he has never been given a fair trial. Evidence against him was shown to have been falsified and witnesses were interfered with. “This is why along with us, Amnesty International is also calling for his reprieve”, says Yvonne Bangert from the indigenous peoples department of STP. „Leonard Peltier is now an old, ill man. An untreated aneurysm in the stomach is a constant threat to his life. Only a president-in-office can open the doors of prison for him. We are hoping for Barack Obama to do so, because in contrast to other predecessors he has shown large interest in the Native Americans.” 

During his presidency for example, Obama has invited a member of the Native Council to a conference at the White House every year. Their umbrella organization, the National Congress of American Indians (NCAI), officially expressed its desire for Leonard Peltier´s reprieve with a resolution in 2011. Many prominent figures have also spoken out for the civil rights activist. Amongst them Simon Wiesenthal, head of the Jewish Historical Documentation Centre, who is now deceased, Nobel peace prize winner Rigoberta Menchu, Desmond Tutu and Nelson Mandela, the Dalai Lama, artists like Robert Redford and Harry Belafonte, and several members of Parliament of the US Congress, the Canadian, the Belgian, the Dutch and the European Parliament as well as members of the German Bundestag.

HeaderPhoto: © Luise Glöckner/STP