By Claus Biegert

The Internet newspaper Huffington Post published a call for help from political prisoner Leonard Peltier, who has been innocently imprisoned for 45 years. He is accused of the death of two FBI agents. All evidence of his conviction had been falsified, even the U.S. Attorney who was partly responsible for putting Peltier in prison at the time is now asking President Joe Biden to pardon him because, in his opinion, there was never any evidence that he committed a crime. Peltier is 77 years old and seriously ill. A pardon from President Biden is his last chance.

“I’m in hell,” Peltier said last Friday. Here’s the wording of his plea for help:

„COVID has turned Coleman Prison back to the Dark Ages. I remember a time at Marion USP when I was put in solitary for so long, when 72 hours could make you start to forget who you were. I once wrote down who I was on the concrete floor under my bed, so if I forgot, I could read it back to myself. I traded my last cigarette for a pencil. I’d rush to the door when a guard left the meager plate of food, just to see a glimpse of another human being — even if it was one that hated me, it was another human and good for my mind for a minute.

I’m in hell, and there is no way to deal with it but to take it as long as you can. I cling to the belief that people are out there doing what they can to change our circumstances in here. The fear and stress are taking a toll on everyone, including the staff. You can see it in their faces and hear it in their voices. The whole institution is on total LOCKDOWN.

In and out of lockdown last year at least meant a shower every third day, a meal beyond a sandwich wet with a little peanut butter — but now with COVID for an excuse, nothing. No phone, no window, no fresh air — no humans to gather — no love ones voice. No relief. Left alone and without attention is like a torture chamber for the sick and old.

Where are our human rights activists? You are hearing from me, and with me, many desperate men and women! They are turning an already harsh environment into an asylum, and for many who did not receive a death penalty, we are now staring down the face of one! Help me, my brothers and sisters, help me my good friends.“

According to Peltier’s attorney Kevin Sharp, the Coleman facility has been in the latest COVID lockdown since Jan. 11. Days and sometimes weeks of COVID lockdowns have been imposed there since March 2021.

Kevin Sharp: “Leonard received his first COVID 19 vaccination in January 2021 and his second in May 2021, which means the booster would have been due in November. He asks jail medical staff every chance he gets when he and others in his cell block will get their booster shots, and they always say they don’t know.”