The American Indian Movement (AIM) sponsored “Walk for Human Rights” for political prisoner Leonard Peltier began on Alcatraz Island this morning with a prayer and pipe ceremony, and will end in Washington D.C. on May 18, 2012.
“The Walk” aims to advance the economic, social, and cultural rights of all people.
Peltier, a 67-year-old Native American activist, has been imprisoned since 1975 for killing two FBI agents on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation. His accused cohorts were acquitted, and all subsequent appeals have all failed.
Advocates argue there was a lack of evidence in the case, and his incarceration has been highly publicized and controversial.
His supporters include Amnesty International, 55 members of Congress, Nelson Mandela, the Dalai Lama, AIM co-founder Dennis Banks, and Puerto Rican political activist Rafael Miranda—a former Alcatraz inmate who served time with Peltier in USP-Marion.
Peltier is currently incarcerated in central Florida’s USP-Coleman I.
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