On behalf of the Leonard Peltier Legal Team, the Leonard Peltier Ad Hoc Committee, and the
National Lawyers Guild Mass Incarceration Committee, we stand in unwavering solidarity with the
Uhuru 3 and urge their acquittal from the politically motivated charges brought by the United States
Government.

Today is bittersweet. I am pleased that the Uhuru 3 are receiving their day in court. Yet as a lawyer I
am concerned because it is a day that should never have become necessary. As the raid on journalist Scott Ritter’s home demonstrates, this nation has a problem with rising repression. This nation, as is clear with my client Leonard Peltier, Mumia Abu-Jamal, and so many others, is attempting to stamp out, silence, and expunge ideas which it views as against its interests, and when it cannot do it by covert means, it does so overtly with criminal charges and cages.
As the National Conference for Black Lawyers states in its statement in support of the Uhuru 3, there is a concerning “pattern and severe risk of politicized prosecutorial discretion by federal prosecutors and law enforcement in the form of investigations, indictments, and prosecutions, including but not limited to, the most recent raid upon the home of journalist Scott Ritter, the prosecution of the Cameroon Three, and the continued incarceration of the Holyland Five. These prosecutions, and others, appear not only politicized, but selective in nature, in violation of both the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments to the U.S. Constitution. These concerning actions also undermine the so-called democratic principles inherent to the rule of law in the United States and contradict standards set forth by international human rights provisions.”

And so here we are on the threshold of the courthouse. A place that historically not been a place of
Justice for Africans, but a place of scorn- unless we the people fill its empty rafters with the echo of
the might of a people powered Justice. And as for the First Amendment, since this government
cannot live up to the ideals of what it says it means, we will show them what it should be, as we have always done.

We claim victory for the Uhuru 3.
From the Battle of Adwa, we claim victory.
From the shores of the Atlantic, a watery grave for many of our ancestors, we claim victory.
From the muddy waters of the Mississippi River, a journey of servitude, we claim victory.
From Joseph Cinque to Nat Turner, to John Brown to Marcus Garvey, Fred Hampton, and
Malcolm X, we claim victory.

From North Florida Avenue, today, we claim victory.

We claim victory. We claim freedom because there is no other end. One day all prison doors will be
unsealed and all chains unloosed. And within this vein there is no other outcome to be had-nor any
other we will accept concerning the Uhuru 3.

Thank you.