Update on April 2007 Worldwide Letter Writing Campaign

Hello Folks,
Your response to our April 2007 worldwide postcard writing campaign to the White House, demanding executive clemency for Leonard Peltier, was enormous! Thank you!!!

We distributed exactly 6,003 campaign cards. And received many messages from you in which you notified us that the cards had been sent. Several people are still sending out the remainder of the cards. If you have any left, don't hesitate. It's not because we're already mid-May, that you have to stop sending these particular postcards.

Was the campaign really a worldwide action? Yes it was! Peltier supporters from the USA, Canada, Belgium, France, Germany, Norway, Finland, Great Britain, Ireland, Sweden, the Netherlands, Turkey and Australia participated. We wished we could have seen that enormous stack of postcards arriving at the White House, day after day! Does it end here? No, of course not. We will have a similar worldwide writing campaign later this year. And, supporters in the USA, please do not forget that there is an LPDC letter writing campaign addressed at your Senators and Representatives regarding the documents which the FBI is still withholding.

See: http://lpdctexas.blogspot.com/2007/03/campaign-to-secure-release-of-leonard.html-----------------

WHAT IS "EXECUTIVE CLEMENCY" ?"Executive clemency" may take several forms, including pardon, commutation of sentence, remission of fine or restitution, and reprieve.The President's clemency power extends only to federal criminal offenses. The Pardon Attorney prepares the recommendation of the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) for the President for final disposition of each application. Executive clemency as regards to Leonard Peltier's case refers to the commutation of his sentence, not a pardon.

A president can decrease the amount of time Leonard Peltier must serve prior to release or immediately release him for time already served. A pardon can only be awarded once a released prisoner has been free and hasn't re-offended for a period of five years. Before leaving office in 2001, then President Bill Clinton did neither approve nor deny a grant of Executive Clemency to Leonard Peltier. He simply opted to do nothing. In 2003, we received a letter from the U.S. Justice Department which acknowledged that Leonard's petition for Executive Clemency is still pending. Even though usually the Attorney General gives his/her recommendations to the President regarding a clemency petition, the authority to grant a commutation of a sentence imposed by a federal court belongs only to the President.

The AttorneyGeneral's recommendation is advisory only. The decision to commute Leonard Peltier's sentence is the President's and the President's alone. There seems to confusion about the timing of awards of Executive Clemency. Many people believe that such awards only occur when a president leaves office. This is not true. For example, President George W. Bush Bush has issued commutations annually since taking office and even former President Bill Clinton awarded clemency at times other than when he left office on January 20, 2001. The timing of such awards also is entirely up to the discretion of the President and may occur on the day he takes office, his last day in office, or any day in between. A two-term President, of course, provides us with even more opportunity. This is all just to say that an active clemency campaign today on Leonard Peltier's behalf is not wasted effort or premature.-----------------

Again, thank you for your support and for participating in this worldwide writing campaign.

Els Herten,IPF directorLPDC international campaign coordinator

Toni Zeidan,LPDC co-director

LPDC WEBSITE:www.leonardpeltier.net

IPF WEBSITEhttp://users.skynet.be/kola/index.htm
andhttp://www.myspace.com/leonardpeltierisinnocent

e-mail LPDC:info@leonardpeltier.net

e-mail IPF:ipforum@skynet.be

ONLINE PETITION FOR EXECUTIVE CLEMENCY:
http://users.skynet.be/kola/lppet.htm