Free John Graham Photo Group May 14, 2008
Click on the photo above to go to the photo group at Flickr
John Graham mural in Victoria, B.C. May 7, 2008
(Click on the graphic to enlarge)
John Graham mural in Coast Salish Territory, Victoria, British Columbia, Canada, 2008
Working TV - Free John Graham (2) April 15, 2008
Like Leonard Peltier, U.S. authorities have extradited another innocent Canadian:
Free John Graham (2)
Public Forum, March 28, 2008 in Vancouver on the extradition of John Graham and the struggle for indigenous self determination against colonization, corporate control, and state repression
Video and audio from forum at Working TV
See also Free John Graham - August 2007
Questions linger about John Graham handover April 15, 2008
Questions linger about John Graham handover
By Matthew Burrows
The Georgia Straight (Vancouver, Canada)
April 10, 2008
Family and supporters of John Graham are still furious over unanswered questions relating to his high-speed extradition to the U.S. last December.
“Why would they put this man in chains and take him across the border, full speed, without him being allowed to talk to lawyer or family?” Vancouver-based justice advocate Jennifer Wade asked in a phone conversation with the Straight.
The Yukon-born Southern Tutchone man is charged with first-degree murder in the execution-style killing of Nova Scotia Mi’kmaq and American Indian Movement member Anna Mae Pictou Aquash, whose body was found in 1976 on the Pine Ridge reservation in South Dakota. Graham has always maintained that he did not commit the crime.
On February 21, 2005, B.C. Supreme Court Justice Elizabeth Bennett ruled that Graham could be extradited to the U.S. to stand trial for the crime. On June 22, 2006, months after the Conservative party gained a minority in Parliament, then–justice minister Vic Toews signed off on the handover of Graham to U.S. authorities.
On June 26, 2007, the B.C. Court of Appeal dismissed Graham’s appeal. On December 6, 2007, the same day he was whisked to the border, Graham was denied leave to appeal his case to the Supreme Court of Canada. According to Wade, Graham was driven from the North Fraser Pretrial Centre in Port Coquitlam and turned over to U.S. authorities. He is currently being held in the Pennington County Jail in South Dakota.
Burnaby-Douglas NDP MP Bill Siksay wrote two letters to Justice Minister Rob Nicholson, dated December 6 and 11, 2007, demanding answers to questions surrounding the surrender.
“Given that he was extradited the same day as the Supreme Court decision was delivered, it is clear that both Canadian and U.S. authorities had already made the necessary arrangements to remove him,” Siksay wrote on December 11. “Why then was Mr. Graham’s legal counsel or his family not informed about the timing of the extradition?”
In a two-page letter to Siksay dated December 18, 2007, Janet Henchey, general counsel and associate director of the International Assistance Group in the federal Department of Justice, stated that it was “standard practice to remove persons sought for extradition pursuant to a valid surrender order as soon as practicable upon the release of the final decision on any outstanding appeals”.
According to Wade, Graham was denied basic rights. “They [prisoners] are allowed to talk to family or lawyer before going,” she said. “He was not allowed access to family or lawyer or friends of any kind. He asked repeatedly if he could phone his family to tell them he was leaving, and they said no.”
Wade has been advocating on Graham’s behalf since he was arrested in Vancouver in December 2003.
Fabrications alleged by our exploiters in the case against John “boy” Graham April 13, 2008
Statement and call-out mentioning John Graham in relation to CANSEC security and weapons fair in Ottawa:
“Allies everywhere are facing exaggerated sentences for blockades (at Tyendinaga), land reclamations (at Six Nations), or even for the fabrications alleged by our exploiters (in the case against John “boy” Graham).”
- Hooligans who Hate Hierarchy, Attack on police station and fire set ( Ottawa, Canada, April 11, 2008 )
————————————————————————————–
SHUT DOWN THE WAR MACHINE!
CANADA OUT OF HAITI!
CANADA OUT OF AFGHANISTAN!
US OUT OF IRAQ!
FREE ALL PRISONERS OF WAR!
FREE ALBERT DOUGLAS!
FREE JOHN GRAHAM!
ABOLISH THE SPP!
DESTROY STATE AND CAPITAL!
solidarity and resistance,
~ottawa anarchists~
Santa Cruz, Calfornia - Incident at Oglala - Free John Graham April 13, 2008
Free film screening of INCIDENT AT OGLALA - the Leonard Peltier Story
[ From Santa Cruz Indymedia - http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2008/04/07/18491117.php ]
Tuesday April 08
7:30 PM - 9:30 PM
Big Yellow House
742 N. Branciforte
Santa Cruz
INCIDENT AT OGLALA: The Leonard Peltier Story
A free film screening, with information about Native prisoners and resistance movements.
7:30pm at the Big Yellow House.
Film description from the DVD case:
In 1975 armed FBI agents illegally entered the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation. Gunfire Erupted–a Native American and two FBI agents fell dead. After the largest manhunt in FBI history three men were apprehended–only one Leonard Peltier was convicted of murder and sentenced to life in prison. This is his story.
From the very beginning, Peltier’s case has been dogged with controversy. Were the charges trumped up? Was the evidence falsified? Ware witnesses pressured to change their testimony? Many people, including some of today s greatest legal minds, believe that Peltier is an innocent man.
Twelve years ago Robert Redford visited Leonard Peltier in prison. Today after yours of struggle with the FBI and the prison system he and director Michael Apted are able to present incident at Oglala a riveting examination of the case and the real story of what my be one of the most outrageous abuses of justice in American history.
90 minutes / color / 1988
Some back story:
In the 1970’s a resurgence in Native American resistance occurred with series of land occupations and armed standoffs related to protecting sacred sites, opposing broken treaties, and fighting genocidal governmental policies. The American Indian Movement became a major target of the FBI’s Counter-intelligence Program (COINTELPRO) by at least 1972, when the Trail of Broken Treaties ended in Washington DC with the takeover of the Bureau of Indian Affairs office. The government repression resulted in the targeting and assassination of participants in the movement, including the death of between 70-250 people over a five-year reign of terror on the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota (where prospectors had recently discovered one of the largest uranium deposits in N. America).
Leonard Peltier was convicted based on faulty evidence and FBI manipulation of the murder of 2 FBI Agents who started a shoot-out at the Jumping Bull residence on June 25, 1975.
John Graham: Leonard Peltier II?
A female leader of AIM named Anna Mae Pictou Aquash was found murdered a few months after the shoot-out; authorities attempted to conceal her body as well as information of death threats she had received from FBI agents. The government is now attempting to cover-up this shameful legacy and sow contempt in contemporary indigenous struggles by framing Anna Mae’s comrade, John Graham, for her murder. Cointelpro’s legacy of infiltrating, imprisoning and otherwise disrupting resistant communities continues to be used and improved on by law enforcement. AIM was targeted extensively in the 70’s because it successfully restored hope and pride in the Native American spirit of resistance.
To learn more about John Graham’s case: http://www.grahamdefense.org/
Related links:
http://ourfreedom.wordpress.com/
http://www.freeleonard.org/
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0104504/
http://www.leonardpeltier.net/
Writing on the Wall - Free John Graham March 27, 2008
© All rights reserved
This photo is public
* Taken on March 20, 2008
By cecily k.
http://flickr.com/photos/cecily_k/2355514296/
This photo is public
* Taken on March 20, 2008
By cecily k.
http://flickr.com/photos/cecily_k/2355514296/
Published in The Republic of East Vancouver,
March 13, 2008 to March 26, 2008, No 184
“Free John Graham” Public Forum in Vancouver March 14, 2008
Free John Graham
March 26, 2008
7:00 pm
In honour of Anna Mae’s birthday (March 27, 1945) and part of a series of events to commemorate March 21 International Day for the Elimination of Racism…March 21 marks the anniversary of the 1960 Sharpeville Massacre in South Africa when police opened fire on hundreds of South Africans protesting against Apartheid’s passbook laws, killing 67 and wounding 186…
(free john graham image by Angela Sterritt, Gitxsan Nation)
FREE JOHN GRAHAM
A public forum on the extradition of John Graham and the struggle for indigenous self determination against colonization, corporate control, and state repression…
Wednesday March 26 @ 7 pm. Room 7000, SFU Harbour Centre. 515 West Hastings (Waterfront Skytrain Station). BY DONATION. Suggested Donation $5-20. (no one turned away). All proceeds go to John Graham Legal Defence Fund as there are significant upcoming legal costs.
* Hosted and Opening talk by Rex Wyler: Rex Weyler is a highly acclaimed journalist, writer, and ecologist. He cofounded Greenpeace International and co-founded Hollyhock Educational Centre. His 1997 book “Blood of the Land: Government and Corporate War Against First Nations” chronicles Indigenous history and received a Pulitzer-prize nomination. He also authored “Greenpeace: The Inside Story” and “Song of the Whale”. His photographs and essays have appeared in numerous publications including the New York Times.
* Chusia and Naneek Graham: John Graham’s daughters who are leading the campaign for truth and justice for their father. They will be speaking about how this struggle has personally affected their lives and their commitment to follow in their father’s footsteps for political, economic, and social justice.
* Mike Gifford (supporter of John Graham and independent researcher) on uranium mining and resource extraction and its impact on indigenous peoples. John Graham was involved in struggles against uranium mining both in the US and Canada. These struggles continue today, most recently with imprisonment of retired Chief Robert Lovelace of the Ardoch Algonquins, who along with the Sharbot Obaadjiwan, have been blocking Frontenac Ventures from uranium exploratory drilling. In unceded British Columbia- eighth highest mineral potential in the world- mining and resort development (particularly leading upto 2010 Olympics) are continuing at an alarming rate; yet indigenous communities are taking courageous stands against ongoing colonial exploitation and corporate devastation to protect the land.
* Billie Pierre (Nlaka’Pamux/Saulteaux, documentary film-maker, researcher/writer, and Native Youth Movement activist since 1995) on the history of the American Indian Movement and state repression against AIM. For example, between 1973-75, an estimated 67 AIM members were killed in South Dakota by Bureau of Indian Affairs police and a paramilitary squad. The FBI also targeted AIM with a counter-intelligence campaign COINTEL-PRO, aimed at disrupting dissident political organizations and also targeted the Black Panther Party, Martin Luther King, socialist groups, and the anti-Vietnam War movement. Despite FBI claims that it no longer undertakes COINTELPRO activities (after a major official investigation); COINTEL-PRO-type activities continue today including through Anti-Terror legislation and diverse security and surveillance operations.
* Lyn Highway (Anishnabe Nation) on supporting John Graham as a political prisoner/prisoner of war. John Graham’s case is being portrayed as ‘an individual criminal act’, yet it operates within a larger context of political repression. Similar to cases such as Leonard Peltier and other political prisoners around the world, the criminalization and demonization of John Graham is an attempt to deny the fundamentally political nature of the imprisonment and obscure the social and political movements that political prisoners represent.
* AND…. reading of a recent letter from Leonard Peltier on his imprisonment and the case of John Graham by Dr. Jennifer Wade: retired UBC Professor, founder of Vancouver branch of Amnesty International, and long-time support of Peltier and Graham.
John Graham is a Southern Tutchone from the Yukon Territory. He is currently imprisoned at the Pennington County Jail in Rapid City, South Dakota, and his trial date has been set for June 17, 2008. John Graham was arrested in Vancouver in December 2003, and after a prolonged legal battle including leave to appeal to the Supreme Court of Canada, he was extradited to South Dakota in December 2007. The allegations against John are of murdering fellow AIM member and Nova Scotia Mi’kmaq Anna Mae Pictou in 1975. John Graham denies he killed Anna Mae.
In the mid-1970s, AIM was carrying out armed stand-offs in defense of the land including the 1973 standoff at Wounded Knee in South Dakota. As a result, AIM was the one of the primary targets of the COINTELPRO counter-intelligence program aimed to weaken, confuse, and arouse suspicion amongst AIM members. At different times, Anna Mae Pictou Aquash, Leonard Peltier and John Graham all said they were offered their freedom if they collaborated with the FBI against other AIM members; they all refused. On the killing of Anna Mae, former FBI regional director Norm Zagrossi has himself stated it “looked like a cover-up” . Ellen Klaver, a journalist in Colorado who has followed the story for three decades, has observed that, “Whoever was involved, the FBI was the architect.” Both the B.C. Supreme Court extradition judge and the B.C. appeal court ruled there were deficiencies in the record of the case given to the courts by U.S. officials.
However the 1999 Extradition Treaty between the United States and Canada lowers the burden of proof to include hearsay evidence, which would not be admitted in a Canadian criminal court. Graham and his lawyers have stated they would welcome a trial in Canada, where the fake evidence could be exposed. A key witness Arlo-Looking Cloud recanted his testimony stating that he was coerced and under the influence of alcohol. Another prosecution witness Kamook Banks admitted she was paid $43,000 to cooperate with the FBI.
Graham has received support from a wide range of organizations including Canadian Labour Congress, Native Youth Movement, Chief Capilano of the Squamish Nation, BC Teachers for Peace and Global Education, BC Hospital Employees Union, Stopwar.ca, Council of Yukon First Nations, BC Federation of Labour. Amnesty International has also stated their concern about the lack of a fair trial, given the clear parallels to Leonard Peltier. Peltier was extradited from Vancouver in 1976; now widely known on false evidence. In 1979 former US solicitor general Warren Allmand acknowledged this and formally “apologized”, yet he remains behind bars as one of the most well-known political prisoners of our time.
The US government, with Canadian government complicity and cooperation, is intent on repressing the last remnants of AIM. Graham’s current legal struggle reflects the political repression faced by Indigenous people who struggle against state and corporate control over Native lands and resources and reflects the ongoing reality of the “Indian Wars”.
*** Organized by John Graham Support. For more information contact grahamdefense@hotmail.com or call 604 418 0279
FURTHER INFORMATION:
==> Websites:
http://www.grahamdefense.org
http://ourfreedom.wordpress.com
==> Trailer of Documentary “Our Sacred History and White Man Lies”: http://ourfreedom.wordpress.com/2008/01/10/our-sacred-history-and-white-man-lies-2/
==> Interview with John Graham:
http://vids.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=vids.individual&videoid=3144354
==> Articles:
Vancouver Sun: Who killed Anna Mae?
http://www.grahamdefense.org/20050108weyler-van-sun.htm
COINTELPRO’s long shadow- The importance of the John Graham case:
http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?ItemID=7589
The Anna Mae Pictou-Aquash Story:
http://aws.roadnetwork.org/node/17
The Case of John Graham:
http://warriorpublications.com/?q=node/25
Canadian Dimension: The Hauntings of Colonialism:
http://canadiandimension.com/articles/2007/01/04/827/
The Tyee: Delivering Framed John Graham
http://thetyee.ca/Views/2007/05/16/JohnGraham/
Common Ground: BC Supreme Court set to decide Graham’s extradition fate http://commonground.ca/iss/0709194/cg194_graham.shtml
Georgia Straight Article:
http://www.straight.com/article-101128/john-graham-says-native-chiefs-under-fbi-spell
Aboriginal Title and International Law: The Occupation of BC, Iraq, the West Bank, and the Extradition Cases of Sittting Bull, Leonard Peltier, James Pitawanakwat, and John Graham by Anthony Hall, University of Lethbridge
http://people.uleth.ca/~hall/bc-kurdistan.htm
John Graham trial moved to September March 12, 2008
John Graham trial moved to September
By Heidi Bell Gease, rapid City Journal staff
Wednesday, March 12, 2008
The murder trial of John Graham has been rescheduled for Sept. 23 at the request of Graham’s attorney.
Graham, 52, of British Columbia was supposed to go on trial here June 17 in U.S. District Court for the fatal shooting of Anna Mae Pictou Aquash, a fellow American Indian Movement member who died on Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in December 1975.
Graham’s attorney, John Murphy, filed a motion Feb. 28 asking that the trial be delayed, saying he needed more time to prepare. According to the motion, the government had already provided Murphy with more than 4,200 documents and 112 audio tapes of witness interviews.
U.S. District Judge Lawrence Piersol, who will preside over Graham’s trial, has rescheduled the trial to Sept. 23. Graham has agreed to waive his right to a speedy trial.
Another man charged in Aquash’s death, Fritz Arlo Looking Cloud, was convicted of first-degree murder after a 2004 trial in Rapid City.
He was sentenced to life in prison.
No Uranium Mining on Stolen Native Land March 4, 2008
NO URANIUM MINING ON STOLEN NATIVE LAND
FREE JOHN GRAHAM AND LEONARD PELTIER
HONOUR ANNA MAE PICTOU AQUASH AND HARRIET NAHANEE
Photo: Viola Papequash and John Graham carry banner during the Caravan for Survival against the Key Lake uranium mine in Saskatchewan in 1980
FREE PRESENTATION OF THE FILM “URANIUM” (1990), NARRATED BY BUFFY STE-MARIE
A film examining the deadly impact of uranium mining on Native lands and peoples, workers and settlers in Canada.
SATURDAY, MARCH 8TH, 2008
7:00 PM @ SPARTACUS BOOKS
319 W. HASTINGS ST.
COAST SALISH TERRITORY, VANCOUVER
Anna Mae Pictou Aquash and John Graham, friends and comrades in the American Indian Movement, both fought against uranium mining and the theft of Native land. Now, the US government has extradited John Graham from Vancouver and imprisoned him on the fraudulent charge of killing Anna Mae, a murder that the FBI first tried to cover-up when her body was found in 1976 on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota. Most likely, Anna Mae was one of over 60 indigenous people killed on the reservation in the 1970s by an FBI-backed death squad designed to destroy AIM and the Lakota people’s resistance to land theft by resource corporations.
grahamdefense.org
ourfreedom.wordpress.com
