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Parole for Malik * Leonard Update * Oneidas for Democracy
07 September 2002
"I see in the near future a crisis approaching that unnerves me and causes me to tremble for the safety of my country. ... corporations have been enthroned and an era of corruption in high places will follow, and the money power of the country will endeavor to prolong its reign by working upon the prejudices of the people until all wealth is aggregated in a few hands and the Republic is destroyed."
- Abraham Lincoln
1) Help Parole [FREE] Malik Abdullah Akili
2) Peltier supporters pin hopes on papers
3) End the Atrocities at Oneida, NY
Editor's Notes:
This Flyby News returns to social justice concerns and request for help. Malik Abdullah Akili has spent too much time incarcerated; he needs your support to gain his freedom. Please consider writing a letter in support of his parole hearing scheduled for this October! September is the time to write! Please help this good friend. The first item includes more from Malik, the draft letter I am working on to send to the parole board, and one sent from Malik's eleven-year-old daughter. Please consider going through the links, read Malik's letters, and write. Time is of the essence for this good person, and for the healing of the harm committed by the racist US prison system.*
Item 2 is a brief update on Leonard Peltier. You may wish to keep the fires for this freedom fighter glowing, and to write to this wonderful being. His 58th birthday is this September 12.
Item 3 is on the complex threat to peace and democracy in Oneida, NY. They need our support, or even just our awareness on this case. Please help network this information, and do what you can.
In thankfulness for this day and the gifts for life and peace..
* The Prison Policy Initiative conducts research and advocacy on incarceration policy. Their work starts with the idea that the racial, gender and economic disparities between the prison population and the larger society represent the grounds for a democratic catastrophe. "Our conception of prison reform is based not solely in opposing a rising rate of incarceration, but in evolving to a better way of addressing social problems than warehousing our citizens in cages."
For the Prison Policy Initiative Web Site, see:
http://www.prisonpolicy.org/index.shtml
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1) Help Parole [FREE] Malik Abdullah Akili
From an August 20, 2002 letter from Malik:
The timing of your brief note was on time. I also have in hand all the Flyby material. It was great reading on the up-date of the political situation taken place here in Amerikka. They heightened my understanding on certain political issues. Thank you for every thing.... Your note, along with the material came at a time when they were most needed.
It has been raining much up here and with the rain comes with it, gloom and depression. Along with these gray walls and the sadness of seeing so many young punk kids coming to prison with so much time – makes me reflect back to my own youth... I think that in many ways my life, in all of its heartbreak, setbacks, failures, contradictions, tragedies and triumphs, can be used as a road map and object lessons for these young kids coming here with 50/75 to life– Perhaps heir lives wouldn't have been necessary subjected to this madness!!
There is nothing hip about coming to prison. This isn't the place one may find manhood/womanhood, or gain some great political, spiritual insight or social wisdom. We may never come to understand, but prisons were built with us in mind. Our youth need to stay in school to learn how to think and not what to think. Our youth needs to learn so they can make informed decisions and become independent thinkers, so that they can make this Earth better for those that come afterwards..
..when we look around today we see that most people are in a fight for survival.. This struggle is taking place with a cross section of people of all colors.. This in itself can become a basis for unity.. I have a vision of the future, and I see us moving in that direction..
With much revolutionary love,
Malik Abdullah Akili
Prisoner # 94-A-5238
For the main updated page for information on Malik, addresses to write Malik and send a letter in support of his parole hearing, see:
http://www.flybynews.com/cgi-local/newspro/viewnews.cgi?newsid999200948,87474,m
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Parole Board Examiner
Re: Malik Abdullah Akili;
DIN: 94-A-5238
Dear Parole Board Examiner,
I am writing on behalf of Malik Abdullah Akili. I have been friends with Malik for more than twenty-five years. We first met in Turners Falls, MA. when Malik was a counselor with a youth organization, and visiting the area near where I lived. We met one another when we came to the aid of a family we knew that had its children removed by a single allegation for emotional abuse by an acquaintance. Malik and I worked to counter-respond and expose the serious nature of having State Troopers arrive at night to take children away to undeclared institutional housing. Finally, after about a week, the children were returned to their parents. So, this began my long friendship with Malik, and over the years, our friendship and trust has only deepened. My background: religion, Jewish, and race, Caucasian, is quite in contrast to Malik's, yet our friendship is based on mutual respect and caring. All of our correspondence is available to you, if interested, please let me know. Some letters have been published in my alternative Internet news service, Flyby News [www.flybynews.com]. I will enclose the issues with items related to Malik and his case.
While Malik is in prison, many of us suffer, too. I know his wife does, his daughter, too, perhaps that is the cruelest part of prison, separation from family and friends, and having one's freedom of movement confined to crowded harsh settings. There has to be real good reason to take someone's freedom away, not just a smudged sole fingerprint, especially during these times of new evidences of fraud in the highest law enforcement offices in the nation, and with DNA proving men's innocence who were released from death row. Please receive the support we have given for Malik's parole as evidence for his character of a good being, and his worth to our community and family. We deserve justice in this light, and compassion to help heal the many years of separation.
With prayers,
Jonathan Mark
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2) Peltier supporters pin hopes on papers
Peltier supporters pin hopes on papers
Defense committee combing thousands of FBI documents
By Joel Mathis, News Reporter
MONDAY, JULY 8, 2002
It's a little bit like looking for the proverbial needle in a haystack. The Leonard Peltier Defense Committee last month received 30,000 pages of FBI documents relating to the imprisoned American Indian's case. Now, activists with the Lawrence-based committee are digging through those pages hoping to find even a sliver of evidence that will help to set Peltier free. "There will be very specific items we'll be looking for," said Denis Moynihan, acting coordinator of the committee. "We'll be looking for evidence of the sort that would grant a retrial."
For the complete article, see:
http://www.ljworld.com/section/archive/story/98724
For more information on Leonard Peltier, see:
http://www.flybynews.com/cgi-local/newspro/viewnews.cgi?newsid1013207483,22139,
September 12 is Leonard's birthday. Please don't forget this great leader, human being, human rights activist. His defense committee's web site is http://www.freepeltier.org
If you wish to write to Leonard directly, write to:
USPL
Leonard Peltier #89637-132
PO Box 1000
Leavenworth, KS 66048
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3) End the Atrocities at Oneida, NY
The Oneidas for Democracy are the Oneida People who peacefully uphold the traditional values of the Haudenosaunee (Iroquois Confederacy). The Onyota'a:ka - "People of the Standing Stone" have endured many hardships over the past few generations as they have struggled to maintain their status as Haudenosaunee. They have overcome great odds to return to their ancestral lands. Their inherent right to live in peace within Oneida Territory is rapidly being stripped away from them by the current leadership of the Oneida Nation of New York, Inc.
Presently, Oneida people reside in New York, Wisconsin and Canada. It was a dream that a homeland for all Oneida people would become a reality. Sadly, such efforts have been thwarted due to the lust for money and control over our ancestral territory by a few misguided Oneidas.
Against the wishes of the Confederacy, and without knowledge of the Oneida people, a Casino deal was struck between ex-Governor Cuomo and so-called Oneida Nation "CEO" Arthur Raymond Halbritter in 1993. The compact was never ratified by the Oneidas. Using money borrowed by Halbritter from the Key Bank of Central NY ( the CEO mortgaged Oneida land without our knowledge) "The Turning Stone Casino" was built in Oneida, NY. The Casino was built on wetlands in violation of both US and Haudenosaunee laws.
Because Halbritter violated Haudenosaunee rules he was removed from his position as an Oneida spokesperson in May, 1993 a decision acknowledged by the US government only to be rescinded by the Bureau of Indian Affairs at the request of US Rep. Sherwood Boehlert who feared a change in Oneida leadership would place the casino in peril .
The Oneida people were completely unaware that any transactions for land, a casino, or lawsuits against 20,000 land owners would ensue. To date, the Oneida people who have opposed these decisions continue to be threatened with on-going human, civil and religious rights violations and are in present danger of losing their homes on the Oneida Indian Territory.
Under the guise of a "beautification program", the leadership has authorized a mock tribal court system to prosecute all those who stand up for their rights as Haudenosaunee. A 54 man, completely non-Native "Oneida Nation Police" force acting on the direct orders of Halbritter has harassed, intimidated and physically assaulted Oneida people on their own territory.
A Tree of Peace was planted on the territory in June of 2000 by Mohawk Nation Chief Jake Swamp at the Oneida Territory to encourage peace and reconciliation. On August 8, 2001, by "direct orders from the CEO" the non-Native contractor uprooted the Tree of Peace and cast it aside. Despite this provocation the Oneida people continue to embrace peace, advocate for a return to traditional democracy, and call for unity among the Oneida people.
Because the Oneidas have sought to restore and protect their ancestral freedoms on their homelands they have endured:
Human, civil and religious rights violations
Personal property illegally confiscated
Suspension of their Oneida membership
No housing benefits
Rejection of heating assistance
On-going police abuses, arrests and harassment including 24 hour surveillance.
Likely evictions from the 32 acre territory
Denial of education benefits
Subverting of due process In the so-called "Oneida court"
To Help Oneidas for Democracy, and for other links, see:
http://www.oneidasfordemocracy.org/help.htm
OneidaPower@hotmail.com Tel. (315)361-4346
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