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Attorney General John Ashcroft RE: Drop your indictment of Greenpeace! Dear Mr. Ashcroft, As an American citizen and taxpayer, I am outraged that the U.S. Justice Department filed a criminal indictment in Miami against Greenpeace, Inc., the U.S. affiliate of the global Greenpeace movement. I demand that the Justice Department immediately stop this absurd and dangerous attack on our nation’s most cherished First Amendment rights by dropping this indictment. The charge stems from events on April 12, 2002, when two Greenpeace activists boarded a commercial ship several miles off the coast of Florida. Greenpeace had learned that the ship was carrying mahogany illegally exported from Brazil's Amazon rainforest. The protestors sought to hang on the ship a banner that read "President Bush: Stop Illegal Logging." This appears to be the first time in United States history that the government has criminally prosecuted an entire organization because of the public protest or civil disobedience actions of its supporters. It is ironic that the U.S. government indicted Greenpeace the very same month that President Bush launched a new global initiative to end illegal logging in the world’s endangered forests. Greenpeace has worked closely with the government of Brazil against illegal logging in the Amazon. Indeed, Greenpeace has worked around the world, through research, advocacy, and action, to protect ancient forests. Work by Greenpeace has been critical to spurring the United States and other countries to strengthen the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES), including heightened protection for mahogany. Yet destruction of the Amazon and other ancient forests continues to threaten clean air and water, animal and plant species, and the people and cultures who depend on forests for their way of life. Large criminal enterprises, using bribery, extortion, slavery, and murder, continue to ravage the Amazon and export their contraband, much of it into the United States. Greenpeace's April 2002 peaceful protest action was aimed at alerting U.S. authorities to the contraband on the ship and highlighting this continued forest destruction. The American tradition of civil protest, from the Boston Tea Party to the modern civil rights movement, is what has made our country great. It would be a sad day for freedom if a peaceful protest action by Greenpeace causes the U.S. government to change course and seek to criminalize entire organizations for free speech activities. Please crack down harder on criminal enterprises that are destroying the Amazon and smuggling contraband into the United States--and stop prosecuting Greenpeace for blowing the whistle on this illegal trade.
copy to: Mr. Christopher Wray Most Sincerely,
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