weitere 550 Unterschriften für Peltier

und hier die nächste Unterschriftenkampagne aus Deutschland mit weiteren 550 Unterschriften für Peltier. Diese Kampagne war Teil des Internationalen Symposiums FREE LEONARD PELTIER in Heidelberg/Germany. Unser Dank dem Orga-Team. Es war so gut mit euch zusammen zu arbeiten und Teil des Teams zu sein.

Dr. Michael Koch/Claudia Weigmann – Koch from Tokata-LPSG RheinMain/Germany
………………………………………………..

Dr. Michael Schiffmann
Linguistics & Cultural Studies
Translator/Editor/Author
Heidelberg, January 10, 2017

Dear President Obama
I am writing to you in the name of the organizers of the Symposium “Free Peltier! Leonard Peltier and the Struggle of the Native Americans” that took place at the German-American Institute (DAI, for Deutsch-Amerikanisches Institut) here in Heidelberg on the weekend of October 7 to 9, 2016. A description of the symposium and a list of the organizers are attached to this letter.

On the initiative of the DAI’s director, Jakob Köllhofer, we decided to work out our own petition to you to release Leonard Peltier through an act of presidential clemency, which I am also attaching, together with an annotated version of that same petition. As the latter hopefully makes clear, each part of this petition has been meticulously researched and fact-checked.

We are thus very confident that our request to you to grant Leonard Peltier clemency is well grounded. Among the first signers of the petition are
Prof. Dr. Noam Chomsky (emer.), Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Lynn Elms, Music College Germersheim
Veronika Geyer, iHerb Charitable Foundation, Germany/Cambodia
Dr. Eva Hänßgen, English Department of the University of Heidelberg
Dr. Kirsten Hertel, English Department of the University of Heidelberg
Dr. Michael Isermann, English Department of the University of Heidelberg
Prof. Dr. Sonja Kleinke, English Department of the University of Heidelberg
Dr. Michael Koch, Youth Welfare Office Offenbach
Jakob Köllhofer, Director of the DAI Heidelberg
Gerd Meuer, Journalist, Freiburg
Dr. Frank Polzenhagen, English Department of the University of Heidelberg
Monika Regelin, TV Journalist, Mannheim
Prof. Dr. Dieter Schulz (emer.), English Department of the University of Heidelberg
Hildegard Stolz, City Councilor Heidelberg
Andre Vltchek, Journalist, Novelist, and Filmmaker
Dr. Arnulf Weiler-Lorenz, City Councilor Heidelberg
Dr. Nicholas Williams, Social-Democratic Party Ludwigsburg
In addition, we have garnered signatures on paper and via the German and English versions of the petition on the internet (for the latter two, see http://www.thepetitionsite.com/…/pr%C3%A4sident-obama-begn…/

and http://www.thepetitionsite.com/…/president-obama-please-gr…/

)The originals of the signatures on paper and printout of the files of the electronic signatures are all attached to this letter.

In December, one of the members of our symposium organizing committee, Veronika Geyer, spent a whole week in front of the White House in an action to ask for the support for clemency for Leonard Peltier by you, Mr. President Barack Obama. Her seven reports from this week, during which the activists were often lonely but never lost courage, are also part of this letter.

And finally, you will find a collection of some pictures from our Symposium “Free Peltier! Leonard Peltier and the Struggle of the Native Americans,” as well my introductory remarks to the Peltier case at the symposium.

&

Dear Mr. President
We, the undersigned, are convinced that you will consider Leonard Peltier’s application for clemency, which he filed on February 17 last year, honestly, diligently, and empathetically. As for myself, each time I am thinking of Leonard Peltier’s clemency application, I am reminded of the beautiful song by the Native American band Redbone, “We Were All Wounded at Wounded Knee,” which, given that you are almost the same age as me, you may also know and some of whose lines read:

They made us many promises but always broke their word
They penned us in like buffalo, drove us like a herd
And finally on the reservation
Where we’d gone for our preservation
We were all wiped out by the seventh cavalry
You and me – you and me

Now we make our promises, we won’t break our word