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Muhammad Mosque No. 61 invites you






The Ministry of Spiritual Development  
The mission of the N.O.I. as a whole and of each of its parts is the spiritual development of the Lost-Found Nation of Islam in North America and our people throughout the world. The mission of the N.O.I. is the resurrection spiritually of a dead people and the entire focus and meaning of its work is to bring about this resurrection as quickly as possible. This is the purpose that gives meaning to all other activities engaged in and is the criterion by which we expect to be judged by Allah and His Messenger, the Honorable Elijah Muhammad. As such, the spiritual dimension must be present in all and excluded from none. (copied from AtonementCommission.com).  
For more information:
e-mail: GRMosque61@gmail.com      


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FROM THE FINAL CALL NEWSPAPER

The continued unraveling of a great nation
By William P. Muhammad
- July 8, 2024





Supreme Court decision could change America as people know it

In a landmark 6-3 Supreme Court ruling, unprecedented powers of immunity were granted to the executive branch of the U.S. government, on July 1. The court’s decision now enables sitting presidents the authority to govern the United States without fear of prosecution, given that these decisions are executed in an “official capacity.”

The majority decision, made along partisan lines, constitutes the first time in American history the judiciary has empowered the presidency to trump the traditional checks and balances between the three branches of government.

Writing for the majority, Chief Justice John Roberts said of the indictments brought against former President Donald Trump, and the allegations of conspiring to overturn the 2020 presidential election through executive branch activities:
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“We conclude that under our constitutional structure of separated powers, the nature of Presidential power requires that a former President have some immunity from criminal prosecution for official acts during his tenure in office.

President Joe Biden speaks in the Cross Hall of the White House Monday, July 1, 2024, in Washington. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)

At least with respect to the President’s exercise of his core constitutional powers, this immunity must be absolute. As for his remaining official actions, he is also entitled to immunity.

At the current stage of proceedings in this case, however, we need not and do not decide whether that immunity must be absolute, or instead whether a presumptive immunity is sufficient.”

Adding that there is no immunity offered for a president’s unofficial acts, the Chief Justice noted on page 16 of his 43-page majority opinion that how that is determined remains undefined and has yet to be determined by a court of law, when he also wrote:

“Determining whether a former President is entitled to immunity from a particular prosecution requires applying the principles we have laid out to his conduct at issue. The first step is to distinguish his official from unofficial actions. In this case, however, no court has thus far considered how to draw that distinction, in general or with respect to the conduct alleged in particular.”

Submitting a blistering dissent albeit in the minority, Justice Sonia Sotomayor, joined by Justices Elena Kagan and Katanji Brown Jackson, wrote:

“Today’s decision to grant former Presidents criminal immunity reshapes the institution of the Presidency. It makes a mockery of the principle, foundational to our Constitution and system of Government, that no man is above the law.

Relying on little more than its own misguided wisdom about the need for “bold and unhesitating action” by the President, ante, at 3, 13, the Court gives former President Trump all the immunity he asked for and more. Because our Constitution does not shield a former President from answering for criminal and treasonous acts, I dissent,” Justice Sotomayor said.

On pages 29 and 30 of her dissenting opinion, she continued in part:

“Looking beyond the fate of this particular prosecution, the long-term consequences of today’s decision are stark. The Court effectively creates a law-free zone around the President, upsetting the status quo that has existed since the Founding.

This new official-acts immunity now “lies about like a loaded weapon” for any President that wishes to place his own interests, his own political survival, or his own financial gain, above the interests of the Nation.

“The President of the United States is the most powerful person in the country, and possibly the world. When he uses his official powers in any way, under the majority’s reasoning, he now will be insulated from criminal prosecution. Orders the Navy’s Seal Team 6 to assassinate a political rival? Immune. Organizes coup to hold onto power? Immune. Immune, immune, immune.

“Let the President violate the law, let him exploit the trappings of his office for personal gain, let him use his official power for evil ends. Because if he knew that he may one day face liability for breaking the law, he might not be as bold and fearless as we would like him to be. That is the majority’s message today.

“Even if these nightmare scenarios never play out, and I pray they never do, the damage has been done. The relationship between the President and the people he serves has shifted irrevocably. In every use of official power, the President is now a king above the law,” Justice Sotomayor unabashedly opined.


Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor attends a panel discussion, Feb. 23, 2024 in Washington. The Supreme Court allowed a president to become a “king above the law,” in the use of official power, Sotomayor said in a biting dissent Monday, July 1, that called the majority opinion on immunity for former President Donald Trump “utterly indefensible.” Joined by the court’s two other liberals, Sotomayor said the opinion would have disastrous consequences for the presidency and the nation’s democracy by creating a “law-free zone around the president.” (AP Photo/Mark Schiefelbein, File)

Unprecedented implications

Eric McDaniel, a professor in the Department of Government at the University of Texas at Austin, told The Final Call that the July 1 Supreme Court decision will have far and wide-ranging consequences and that the court victory handed to former President Trump will have an impact well beyond the upcoming 2024 elections in November.

“One of the concerns that people have had for quite a while now is the growth of the power of the presidency. A lot of that has come from the fact that Congress has not been efficient in getting a lot of things done and this decision does not help,” Prof. McDaniel insisted.

“If Congress were effective and shame mattered, both (Justices) Alito and Clarence Thomas would have stepped down by now, given the controversies they’ve been associated with, but shame is no longer part of this,” Prof. McDaniel said.

“There used to be a set of rules people would follow and they don’t follow those rules anymore. (Officials) often will abuse power and there will be no repercussions,” he noted.

“This has soured more and more people towards American democracy which will probably lead us more and more towards an authoritarian system, and that’s my big fear.”

Political scientist, Dr. Wilmer Leon, a radio talk show host and international media analyst, told The Final Call that the 6-3 Supreme Court decision is a travesty and that it demonstrates the effectiveness of the former Trump administration’s long-term goals when it stacked the courts with those sympathetic to self-serving outcomes.

Gary Roush, of College Park, Md., protests outside the Supreme Court Monday, July 1, 2024, in Washington. (AP Photo/Mariam Zuhaib)

“Justice Roberts says that ‘presidents aren’t above the law, but must be entitled to presumptive immunity, to allow them to forcefully exercise the office’s far-reaching powers and avoid a vicious cycle of politically motivated prosecutions.’ What does that mean?”

Dr. Leon asked. “You’re not above the law, but the presumption is that you are above the law. This is saying, this is a nasty job and you’re going to have to do some things that a lot of people are not going to like,” he said of the possible foreign and domestic policies that could emerge from unchecked presidential powers.

Arguing that the former Obama Administration established a precedent of extra judicial killing, regarding American citizens, in this case including a minor on foreign soil, Dr. Leon suggested a sitting president now has the authority to be judge, jury, and executioner on U.S. soil.

Dr. Leon was referring to the 2010 CIA-conducted drone strike that killed American citizen Anwar al-Awlaki in Yemen whom the U.S. accused of being an “al-Qa’ida, jihadist.” The strike was ordered by then-President Barack Obama.

According to The Intercept, “Two weeks after the killing of Awlaki, a separate CIA drone strike in Yemen killed his 16-year-old American-born son, Abdulrahman, along with the boy’s 17-year-old cousin and several other innocent Yemenis.

The U.S. eventually claimed that the boy was not their target but merely ‘collateral damage,’” The Intercept reported in a January 30, 2017 article written by Glen Greenwald, titled, “Obama Killed a 16-Year-Old American in Yemen. Trump Just Killed His 8-Year-Old Sister.”

“(Justice) Sotomayor is absolutely right, ‘It’s a far greater danger if the president feels empowered to violate federal criminal law buoyed by the knowledge of future immunity,’ so what the court has done is not answer (the) question and that is the danger,” Dr. Leon said.

“It’s unchartered territory, they have created this grey zone (and) they’re erring on the side of danger. Because it’s presumptive immunity, you assume it’s authorized going in,” he warned.

A ‘future shock’ now

Regarding domestic policy, Dr. Raymond A. Winbush, director of the Institute for Urban Research at Morgan State University in Baltimore, told The Final Call that the high court’s decision will have a profound impact upon Black people in America—whether they accept it as reality or not.

“There’s five great decisions by the U.S. Supreme Court and three of them involve Black people, the Dred Scott decision (1857), Plessey v. Ferguson in 1896, and Brown v Board (of Education) in 1954,” Dr. Winbush explained.

“This one is in that category as one of the most potentially racist decisions that the court has ever made, and the reason why is, for Black people, it essentially says the president of the United States is now a king and that a king can do no wrong.”

Revisiting the campaign statements and words of the former president, Dr. Winbush cautioned Black people, in particular, to carefully consider the time, what must be done, and to be aware that thoughtless or reckless actions and behaviors could have very grave consequences following the high court’s ruling.

“If Trump wins this presidency, he said in his first term that perhaps we should bring the U.S. Army or the National Guard into places like Chicago to stop crime,” Dr. Winbush said.

“Well, now you could say we’re going to move the U.S. Army into Black neighborhoods experiencing crime throughout the United States. He could literally declare martial law over crime.

He could do anything, and like Sotomayor said in her dissent, you could literally send SEAL Team Six to assassinate your political opponent and he’s immune,” Dr. Winbush said of how factions have been desirous of “retaking the country” as highlighted in the 900-page “Project 2025” agenda currently promoted by the Heritage Foundation.

People protest outside the Supreme Court Monday, July 1, 2024, in Washington. (AP Photo/Mariam Zuhaib)

Likening the immediate aftermath of the July 1 decision and the political environment facing the United States to the international dangers facing the world on the eve of World War II, Dr. Winbush described how the danger of fascism is now rising in the United States where the masses of the people, regardless of color, have been driven to distraction through a “dumbing down” of the citizenry.

“Right now, the state, not just in this country, but globally, is trying to get people to think less so we have all of these distractions that are turning us away from our own thoughts,” Dr. Winbush insisted.

“We are being programmed at this time to be distracted; to not read; to not even think; they’re doing the thinking for us, like the quotation from (Agent) Smith in The Matrix. The Constitution is going out the window,” he said.

A final mercy for the oppressed and the oppressor

Houston-based Southwest Regional Student Minister Dr. Abdul Haleem Muhammad, of the Nation of Islam’s Mosque No. 45, under the leadership of the Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan, told The Final Call that the Supreme Court has undermined the system of checks and balances that the framers of the Constitution established at the very founding of the republic, and as such, it has sped up the pace of the unraveling of a great nation that Minister Farrakhan has warned of.

“What the Roberts Court has done has empowered the chief executive to commit criminal acts under the color of official acts and thereby aid, assist, and abet the unraveling of a great nation called the United States of America,” Student Minister Muhammad said of what will hasten the fall of America as a powerful and independent nation as taught by the Most Honorable Elijah Muhammad and Minister Farrakhan.

Referring to the Flag of Islam that was given to the Honorable Elijah Muhammad and the Nation of Islam by its Founder, Allah (God) in the Person of the Great Mahdi Master W. Fard Muhammad, Student Minister Muhammad explained how it (Flag of Islam) represents that the Believer is made “free, justified, and equal” to all mankind and that separation unfolds spiritually, mentally, and then physically.

“For us to discuss separation is to assert our divine rights, our natural rights as humans made in the image and likeness of God,” Student Minister Muhammad asserted. “This is the same thing the founding fathers of this country did and the same thing that the founding fathers of the Republic of Texas did.

In both cases, they decided that their contemporary systems of government failed them and did not serve their inalienable rights,” he said.

“Soon and very soon, our people will come to realize that this current form of government is not serving or protecting them and they will be forced by circumstances to accept or reject separation as the best and only answer as outlined by the Honorable Elijah Muhammad.”

The Final Call encourages readers to view and study once again, the 2020 Saviours’ Day message: “The Unraveling of a Great Nation,” by Minister Farrakhan by visiting media.noi.org.






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From The Final Call Newspaper

Israel had forewarning about the October 7 attacks

By Brian E. Muhammad, Staff Writer
- June 25, 2024





“And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.”—John, 8:32

The Zionist State of Israel is in political flux navigating war and growing domestic scrutiny about an unclear war strategy and endgame to its nearly nine-month-old war in Gaza.

Meanwhile, lingering questions still plague Israel about the security breach that bump-started the war in the first place, when Hamas led an unprecedented incursion on illegal Israeli settlements or kibbutzim on October 7, 2023.

According to a June 15 report from Israeli public broadcaster Kan-11 citing a document titled, “Detailed End-to-End Raid Training,” released on Sept. 19, 2023, leaders in the Israeli Intelligence and the Defense Forces (IDF) had foreknowledge that Hamas was preparing for the elaborate move.
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But they dismissed the notion as verbal bluster by the Palestinians who they deemed incapable of penetrating Israel’s high-tech border wall. But on Oct. 7, the impenetrable was penetrated. There has been controversy ever since, whether the breach of the most fortified border worldwide was really an intelligence failure or something more sinister.
Israel Palestinians Daily Photo

During a February 25 address titled ‘What Does Allah, The Great Mahdi and The Great Messiah Have To Say About The War In The Middle East?’ the Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan, National Representative of the Most Honorable Elijah Muhammad and the Nation of Islam, attributed the breach to an intentional plan involving Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s having foreknowledge about it.

“Here is what happened in Palestine. They chose October the 7th, the birth day of the Honorable Elijah Muhammad,” said Minister Farrakhan, referring to his teacher. For decades both men have shared Divine guidance and warning to the nations and leaders of the world concerning the events of the time.

“A real fight went on. That was not fake! That action was real. And I’m looking back at the face of Netanyahu; and I am not sure that even though they were sure of the outcome, they never thought they would suffer what they suffered,” said Minister Farrakhan.

Israel has an “Iron Dome” missile defense system where incoming rockets are intercepted. That day, Hamas sent 5,000 missiles, and all were not intercepted. The Iron Dome failed. In the most fortified nation in the world, there were 22 breaks in its impregnable wall.
 


“You put a cat on that wall, and several means of protection will come out at once! They have automatic machine gun fire; they have balloons, they have drones, they have weaponry! But none of that was brought to bear on the 7th of October. The truth is there was a stand-down that allowed these things to happen,” Minister Farrakhan stated.

The Muslim leader, whose February 25 message was broadcast via internet worldwide said that Mr. Netanyahu allowed the plans of Hamas to go through with the intention of creating a second “Nakba”—when over 700,000 Palestinians were forcefully displaced in the 1948 creation of Israel. The Minister also said the move was the pretext to force a new reality on Gaza and genocidal actions on the Palestinian people.

“He (Netanyahu) already knew what Hamas was going to do because he sanctioned it,” he said.

In a communication Minister Farrakhan received from his teacher, the Honorable Elijah Muhammad—while being quiet about the war in Gaza—he was shown a picture of Netanyahu and members of the Israeli prime minister’s war cabinet proposing a toast to the Jews who lived outside of the walls that separated Gazans from Israelis.



“In the middle of the night, I received a picture of the prime minister of Israel. A big picture! And he (the Honorable Elijah Muhammad) wanted me to study that man,” Minister Farrakhan said on Feb. 25.

“They were toasting the innocence of Jews that on the 7th of October would be martyred. They were being martyred because he knew their plans, and he used their plans to help Hamas do what it did because he had in his mind a second Nakba,” the Minister continued.

“But Netanyahu had in mind that he was going to use the pain of their loss to destroy the whole Palestinian community, not only in Gaza but the West Bank, East Jerusalem,” he said.

Minister Farrakhan explained that the subsequent war in Gaza was a genocidal attack that Mr. Netanyahu knew would preserve his place as a great Jewish leader.

“People do strange things when their hatred is so great of the people that they are killing; that their intention was to cleanse Gaza of every Palestinian that lived there and cleanse the West Bank and East Jerusalem so that Israel would not be bothered with Palestinians anymore,” Minister Farrakhan reasoned.

The Oct. 7 attack resulted in 1,200 dead and 250 mostly Israelis taken captive. Currently, despite outrage and the Zionist State becoming more isolated globally, there is no foreseeable end of the war that slaughtered a disproportionate 37,000-plus Palestinians. To this day within Israel there has not been an accounting for what happened that night.



“There is a division between the military and the politicians,” said Wafic Faour, a Palestinian rights activist with Vermonters For Palestine.

He told The Final Call there is blame-shifting between the Israeli government, intelligence, military, and a refusal to take responsibility for the outcomes of Oct. 7. The politicians are pointing the finger at the military and the military is blaming the politicians for dismissing the possibility, despite intel saying otherwise. None want to recognize they completely failed that night and in the subsequent war.

None of Israel’s major war goals were achieved, said Mr. Faour. Finishing Hamas, capturing or killing its leaders, freeing all Israeli hostages, and establishing a government alternative to Hamas for Gaza are non-existing. “This is the major failure,” he says. “But as you know, in wars victory has 1,000 fathers, and defeat is an orphan,” Mr. Faour added.

While blame-shifting about Oct. 7 continues, inner rifts over the ongoing war are also showing. In remarks on Israeli television, the IDF spokesman admitted Hamas will not be obliterated, which is one of Israel’s chief aims.

“This business of destroying Hamas, making Hamas disappear—it’s simply throwing sand in the eyes of the public,” Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari, IDF spokesperson, told Israel’s Channel 13 TV on June 19. “Hamas is an idea; Hamas is a party. It’s rooted in the hearts of the people— whoever thinks we can eliminate Hamas is wrong.”

After Mr. Netanyahu’s office expressed ire over the comments, the IDF issued a clarifying statement explaining that Mr. Hagari was referring to the destruction of Hamas as an ideology.

Meanwhile, as finger-pointing and blame shifting about Oct. 7, the emergency coalition government set up to address the war is crumbling. On June 18, Mr. Netanyahu abolished the special war cabinet established after Israel declared war the day after Hamas and others converged into the occupier settlements.

The disbandment came days after Benny Gantz, Mr. Netanyahu’s chief political rival and a former defense minister, quit the six-member cabinet on June 9.

Mr. Gantz grew frustrated with Mr. Netanyahu’s inaction on critical questions like the “day after” the war’s end. In May, Mr. Gantz gave the prime minister a June 8 deadline to produce a formal plan for a post-Hamas Gaza, which never materialized.

People stand outside a mosque destroyed in an Israeli air strike in Khan Younis, Gaza Strip, Sunday, Oct.8, 2023. The Hamas militants broke out of the blockaded Gaza Strip and rampaged through nearby Israeli communities, taking captives, while Israel’s retaliation strikes leveled buildings in Gaza. (AP Photo/Yousef Masoud)

In addition, Mr. Gantz submitted to government a proposal to form a state commission of inquiry into the Oct. 7 situation; Israel’s conduct in the Gaza war it precipitated; and an investigation of the preparation, alertness and readiness of the security and intelligence agencies right before Oct. 7.

Questions have been raised in the media since the early weeks of the war. Mr. Gantz was defense minister when the “Iron Wall” on the border was completed in 2021, and described it as “a creative, technological project of the first order,” that places “a wall of iron, sensors and concrete” between Gaza and residents of southern Israel. However, a wider agenda is playing out to why the war cannot end.

Minister Farrakhan pointed out in his address that Israel now sees billions of dollars of oil wealth under Gaza and they want to build a canal larger than Egypt’s Suez Canal and take advantage of that wealth. And along with the land resource in Gaza is the long-held desire to annex several states in what they want as “Greater Israel,” including Saudi Arabia and Jordan.

“Do you know about that? That man already has over 400 nuclear bombs sitting in the desert in Dimona, Israel, under where my Hebrew Israelite family stayed,” Minister Farrakhan told the capacity audience in Detroit during his message.

“That’s a lot of weapons. And they, now, feel that they are the power in the Middle East, and they are,” stated Minister Farrakhan, explaining what Israel is ultimately after.

Now the world is waking up to the truth of what the Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan shared Feb. 25 from what the Most Honorable Elijah Muhammad gave to him through what Allah (God) revealed.

To view, hear and study the Saviours’ Day 2024 message by the Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan titled, “What Does Allah, The Great Mahdi and The Great Messiah Have To Say About The War In The Middle East?” visit media.noi.org.


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From The Final Call Newspaper

Native Americans seek compassionate release for Leonard Peltier

By William P. Muhammad
- June 17, 2024


Indigenous rights activists take part in a rally in support of imprisoned Native American activist Leonard Peltier, at Lafayette Square across from the White House, in Washington, DC, on September 12, 2023. The activists are gathering on Peltier's 79th birthday, calling for clemency after he was convicted for the murder of two FBI agents in 1975, and sentenced to two consecutive life terms in prison. Though Peltier's supporters claim he was wrongly convicted, he has exhausted his appeals and all parole requests have been denied. (Photo by Mandel NGAN / AFP) (Photo by MANDEL NGAN/AFP via Getty Images)


Indigenous rights activists, including Native American elders representing various clans, tribes, and Indian nations, rallied in various locations throughout the country, on June 10, holding prayers and ceremonies for the compassionate release of 79-year-old Leonard Peltier.

Mr. Peltier, a member of the American Indian Movement (AIM), was convicted and sentenced to life in prison after an armed standoff with federal agents turned deadly on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in 1973.

According to his attorneys, documented prosecutorial misconduct, witness intimidation, and the tampering of evidence led to Mr. Peltier’s conviction, making him the longest-serving Native American political prisoner in the country.

Spending nearly 50 years of his life behind bars for the killing of two federal agents, Mr. Peltier is a member of the Turtle Mountain Chippewa tribe and has consistently maintained his innocence. Supporters hope that formerly suppressed evidence and his declining health condition will convince the parole board to let him go home.


“He was born in the height of what’s called The Termination Era, which is a time in history when the United States federal government was attempting to terminate the federal recognition of the sovereignty of Indigenous tribal nations, which to the extent that it happened, was disastrous,” said Attorney Moira Meltzer Cohen, a member of Mr. Peltier’s legal defense team, during a parole hearing update, webcast live over YouTube’s Black Power Media channel.

“There was just unchecked poverty, family separation, language lost, culture lost, the spiritual and traditional practices of Indigenous peoples were criminalized. We have a First Amendment to the Constitution that guarantees the free exercise of religion,” Atty. Meltzer Cohen explained.

Native American and Indigenous activists and supporters of Leonard Peltier gather for a prayer circle in San Francisco on June 10. Photos: Jesus “Frisco Lens” Coba

“But up until the late 70s, it was criminally illegal for Indigenous peoples to practice their ceremonial spirituality or their spiritual ceremonies,” she said of the time and circumstances surrounding Mr. Peltier’s birth and childhood as a Native American.

“People are starting to learn more now about the Indian boarding schools (see The Final Call Vol. 41 No.34), and Mr. Peltier is a survivor of the notoriously brutal Wahpeton boarding school and he was someone who as a young person, protested termination policies, fought for treaty rights, which are the supreme law of the land, fought for the rights of Indigenous people, and joined the American Indian Movement,” Atty. Meltzer Cohen added.

American Indian activist Leonard Peltier speaks during an interview at the U.S. Penitentiary at Leavenworth, Kan., April 29, 1999. Photo: Joe Ledford/The Kansas City Star via AP

“It is not particularly controversial to observe that in the 1970s, civil rights groups like AIM, which engaged in community service, and constitutionally protected activity were subject to unlawful physical and electronic surveillance, propaganda and smear campaigns, infiltration and strategic and internal disruption, and politically motivated prosecution,” Mr. Peltier’s attorney said.

Noting these tactics were not only the allegations of activist groups but also revealed as documented facts uncovered by Congressional investigations, Atty.

Meltzer Cohen added that the tribal government of the Pine Ridge reservation in South Dakota was installed by the federal government and was used to dismantle the folkways, mores and customs of those “not sufficiently assimilationist,” and that those who resisted were often subject to harsh coercive measures.

“This is not something that is just folklore, this is documented in thousands of documents disclosed, pursuant to the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), (and) the FBI’s own documents show that they were materially supporting extreme violence against traditionalist citizens of Pine Ridge, including arming (those) who worked for the tribal president, Dick Wilson, who were known as “the goon squad,’” Atty. Meltzer Cohen explained.

“The tribal president basically had his own private mercenary police force and arms, who was being armed by the FBI and they were involved in organized violence including murders, assassinations, sexual assaults, and firebombing,” Peltier’s lawyer said. “The FBI was not only supplying the goon squads with weapons and ammunition but turning a blind eye to the results and devastation.”



According to local historians and the Peltier legal team, this era of violence and oppression, known in Indian Country as “The Reign of Terror,” is what facilitated the 1973 AIM occupation of Wounded Knee, a hamlet and creek in southwestern South Dakota.

It was also the location of the notorious Wounded Knee massacre where hundreds of Lakota Sioux were gunned down by the United States Army in 1890.

Government misconduct exposed

Explaining that Mr. Peltier and three others were targeted for prosecution based upon what his legal team described as trumped-up charges and extreme official misconduct by those in authority, his attorneys postulate that although there was an exchange of gunfire and that two FBI agents were killed, the arrest, conviction, and subsequent sentencing of Mr. Peltier was based more upon political expediency than upon the merits of the case.

“Mr. Peltier fled to Canada because he knew he was not going to get a fair trial here in the United States and the investigation, the extradition, and his prosecution were all plagued by incredible, shocking, and well-documented government misconduct,” Atty.

Meltzer Cohen contended. Charges were dismissed against one defendant and two others were acquitted on the grounds of self-defense.

According to Peltier’s legal team, official government documents acknowledged the misconduct which included:

• The dissemination of inflammatory and false information to the respective courthouse.




• Fabrication of eye-witness affidavits.

• The use of perjured affidavits to extradite petitioner.

• The use of perjured firearms evidence at his trial.

• Fabrication of ballistics evidence and suppression of proof thereof.

• Fabrication of vehicle evidence and suppression of proof thereof.

• Fabrication of evidence that the petitioner killed the agents and suppression of eye-witness accounts that others were responsible.

• Fabrication of testimony of purported confessions by the petitioner and his codefendants.

• The coercion of children into giving perjured testimony.

• The manipulation of the judge and jury through the climate of fear in the courtroom.

• The government’s plot to kill the petitioner during an escape.

Languishing behind the walls of various federal prisons for nearly five decades, an ailing and infirmed Leonard Peltier continues to suffer from deteriorating health conditions as private associations affiliated with law enforcement organizations continue to lobby the courts and brand Mr. Peltier as a remorseless killer.

“The decades have been characterized by cruelty and neglect and fundamental unfairness,” said Atty. Jenipher Jones, lead counsel of Mr. Peltier’s legal team. Atty. Jones described Mr. Peltier as one dedicated to the principles of his culture and people.

Remaining a cultural icon to many Native Americans, a living martyr to the cause of Indigenous rights, and a humanitarian through his art, supporters said Mr. Peltier encourages Indigenous youth to embrace the knowledge of self as a means for healing, and by dedicating his life to promoting his people’s tribal traditions, cultural identity, and religious practices as a virtue.

“In this near 50 years that Leonard has been incarcerated, the state has dealt with him in a horrific manner,” Atty. Jones said.

This undated photo shows a photo of Leonard Peltier as an older man. Leonard Peltier, photo on flyer, has been incarcerated for 50 years. Photos: Jesus “Frisco Lens” Coba

“He has spent a total of 15 years in solitary confinement, the entire time of his incarceration is marked by medical neglect, which has really come to the fore now that he is (nearly) 80, and pretextual disciplinary actions attempt to silence his voice, in terms of access to the media, that is ongoing to this moment,” she insisted.

Dawn Lawson, personal assistant to Mr. Peltier outside the walls of the United States Penitentiary, Coleman 1 in central Florida, and assistant to his legal team’s lead counsel, told The Final Call that over the decades of his incarceration, Mr. Peltier’s prosecutorial supervisor has come forward and said that they could not prove he committed any crime on that reservation and that a former FBI agent has even come forward to say that no one looked at the role that corrupt authorities played into what the Peltier legal team described as gross injustices.

“The people of Pine Ridge endured three years of being brutalized by their own tribal council who called themselves “the goon squad” and over 60 people were murdered,” Ms. Lawson said of the horrors on the Pine Ridge reservation hidden from public view in the late 1960s and early 1970s.

“The goon squad reported that the FBI had been providing them cash, intelligence, and weapons to kill people. Everything from the beginning has been a constitutional violation,” she said.

“There was a 17-page United Nations report outlining all the illegalities and constitutional violations and the U.S. has not responded; we do not even admit we have political prisoners,” Ms. Lawson insisted.

“Now, at 80 years old, he has an aortic aneurysm; he’s got diabetes; he has degenerative bone disease; he is experiencing the onset of intermittent blindness; he is in excruciating pain; he’s on a walker, and he keeps falling,” she said of the medical neglect continuing to ill-affect him within the prison.

“They gave him a CPAP machine so he can breathe during the night because of sleep apnea, but there’s no electrical outlet to plug it into. They’ve been withholding his medication, sometimes even the insulin, and they took his Tylenol away; he has nothing for pain,” Ms. Lawson continued.

A new generation rises

George Galvis is cofounder and executive director of Communities United for Restorative Youth Justice based in Oakland, California, and a member of the Quechua Nation, an Indigenous people from the Andean region of South America.

He told The Final Call that the plight of Leonard Peltier is felt beyond the borders of the United States and that since he was a teenager, he was mentored by veterans of the American Indian Movement.

“My elders told me that you don’t really know where you’re going unless you know where you’ve been, and for us, culture is our strength, culture is our healing, and culture is our recovery from over this 500 plus years of colonialism, and one form of genocide is ‘culturicide,’” Mr. Galvis said.

“By stripping away our culture and the things that have kept us healthy and strong since time immemorial, stripping us of our identity through violence, assimilation, synthesization, and hegemony, is a way of us becoming lost so we don’t continue to resist as Indigenous people rooted to the land.”



Mr. Galvis and many other Indigenous activists participated in prayers and spiritual ceremonies on what they identify as sacred land originally belonging to the Ramaytush Ohlone, the original inhabitants of the San Francisco Peninsula where the federal courthouse now stands.

Co-organizers of the “Stop the Genocide: Federal Court Appeal” rally and art, build to support plaintiffs in their historic case to charge the U.S. government with complicity in genocide, coincided with the June 10 parole hearing date of Leonard Peltier in Florida, bringing together Native Americans, Palestinian Americans, and other people of goodwill demanding justice and accountability for the oppressed.

Morning Star Gali, the founder and executive director of Indigenous Justice, out of Sacramento, California, shared with The Final Call that she was born during a sunrise ceremony in Oakland’s AIM House in 1979 and that she has been aware of Mr. Peltier’s case her entire life. She said the name given to her at birth was very intentional and that both of her parents were members of AIM.

“I had been born in the ceremony, my family members brought me out, introduced me to the sacred fire within minutes of being born, introduced me to our sacred ceremony, made those prayers and held me in that light of the morning star, and I received my name in that way,” Ms. Gali said.

“I continue to pass on those traditions, all four of my children have names within our traditional language, they all have tribal names, and it’s really a continuation of that prayer, a continuation of the efforts and sacrifices that have been made by our ancestors for us to be here and for our survival today,” Morning Star Gali said.

“I’ve always aligned both my personal and community values and support with freedom for Leonard Peltier. We are working to do everything we can do understanding the ongoing health challenges he’s experiencing in the push for a compassionate release and freedom for all political prisoners.”

The decision on Mr. Peltier’s parole is expected within 21 days of his June 10 hearing.

The Final Call Newspaper thanks Native American elders Lenny Foster, Fred Short, and Wounded Knee whose suggestions and input made coverage of this story possible.





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The goal of Muhammad’s Study Group #61 in Grand Rapids, MI is to facilitate the spiritual and mental resurrection of the Lost-Found members of the Original Family here in the city of Grand Rapids. As Muslim followers of the Honorable Elijah Muhammad under the Divine Guidance of the Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan, we are committed to providing our people with access to the words and wisdom that will bring about this resurrection. We welcome all who are interested in learning more about these great men and the awesome work that they have been commissioned by God to do, to contact us with any questions or inquiries. (616) 325-5016
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