National Lawyers Guild Demands Immediate Release of Attorney Peter Erlinder Vigorous Legal Advocate Arrested in Rwanda

Date: Fri, 28 May 2010 15:30:40 -0500 (CDT)

From: wamm@mtn.org

Subject: [Women Against Military Madness] Action Alert-Peter Erlinder arrested

National Lawyers Guild Demands Immediate Release of Attorney Peter Erlinder Vigorous Legal Advocate Arrested in Rwanda

For Immediate Release: May 28, 2010   

Contact: David Gespass, 205-566-2530

Heidi Boghosian, 917-239-4999

New York - The National Lawyers Guild (NLG) demands the immediate release of its former president, Professor Peter Erlinder, whom Rwandan Police arrested early today on charges of "genocide ideology." He had traveled to Rwanda's capital, Kigali, on May 23, to join the defense team of Rwandan presidential candidate Victoire Ingabire Umuhoza. Erlinder is reportedly being interrogated at the Rwandan Police Force's Kacyiru headquarters.

Professor Erlinder has been acting in the best tradition of the legal profession and has been a vigorous advocate in his representation of Umuhoza. There can be no justice for anyone if the state can silence lawyers for defendants whom it dislikes and a government that seeks to prevent lawyers from being vigorous advocates for their clients cannot be trusted. The entire National Lawyers Guild is honored by his membership and his courageous advocacy," said David Gespass, the Guild's president.

Erlinder traveled to Kigali after attending the Second International Criminal Defense Lawyers' Conference in Brussels. Since his arrival in Kigali, the state-sponsored Rwandan media has been highly critical of Erlinder. The Rwandan Parliament adopted the "Law Relating to the Punishment of the Crime of Genocide Ideology" (Genocide Ideology Law), on July 23, 2008. It defines genocide ideology broadly, requires no link to any genocidal act, and can be used to include a wide range of legitimate forms of expression, prohibiting speech protected by international conventions such as the Genocide Convention of 1948 and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights 1966.

Sarah Erlinder, Arizona attorney and NLG member said, "My father has made a career defending unpopular people and unpopular speech - and is now being held because of his representation of unpopular clients and analysis of an historical narrative that the Kagame regime considers inconvenient.

We can help defend his rights now by drawing U.S. government and media attention to his situation and holding the Rwandan government accountable for his well-being."

Before leaving for Brussels and then Kigali, Professor Erlinder notified the U.S. State Department, his Minnesota Congressional Representative Betty McCullom, Representative Keith Ellison, and Minnesota Senators Al Franken and Minnesota Senator Amy Klobuchar.

Professor Erlinder is a professor of law at the William Mitchell College of Law. He is a frequent litigator and consultant, often pro bono, in cases involving the death penalty, civil rights, claims of government and police misconduct, and criminal defense of political activists. He is also a frequent news commentator. Erlinder was president of the National Lawyers Guild from 1993-1997, and is a current board member of the NLG Foundation. He has been a defense attorney at the UN International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda since 2003.

The National Lawyers Guild, founded in 1937, is the oldest and largest public interest/human rights bar organization in the United States. Its headquarters are in New York and it has chapters in every state. # # #

Call and demand the immediate release of Professor Peter Erlinder:

Senator Al Franken   (202) 224-5641    Or send an email at

http://franken.senate.gov/contact/

Senator Amy Klobuchar   202-224-3244   Fax: 202-228-2186   Or send an email at

http://klobuchar.senate.gov/emailamy.cfm?contactForm=emailamy&submit=Go

Representative Keith Ellison    202-225-4755    Or send an email at

http://forms.house.gov/ellison/webforms/issue_subscribe.htm

Representative Betty McCullom    (202) 225-6631   Fax: (202) 225-1968    Or send

an email at http://forms.house.gov/mccollum/webforms/issue_subscribe.htm

Rwandan police arrest Minnesota lawyer

Arrested for defending human rights.

Tell Obama to intervene: 

Drop the charges!


Photo: Peter Erlinder, a law professor at William Mitchell College of Law in St. Paul

Peter Erlinder, a law professor at William Mitchell College of Law in St. Paul (Raoul Benavides, William Mitchell College)

Rwandan police arrest Minnesota lawyer
by Madeleine Baran, Minnesota Public Radio
May 28, 2010


St. Paul, Minn. — Rwandan police arrested a prominent Twin Cities law professor Friday for allegedly expressing what are considered illegal views on the country's genocide, according to Rwandan news reports.

William Mitchell College of Law professor Peter Erlinder had arrived in the country earlier this week to represent an opposition candidate for president who faces similar charges.

Erlinder has been outspoken in his disagreement with the government's official explanation of the 1994 genocide, said Eric Janus, president and dean of William Mitchell College of Law.

"He felt that there was a strong case to be made for rethinking the nature of the causes of the genocide and who was to blame for it, and that there were many people who were extremely upset with him because of that advocacy," Janus said.

A spokesman for the U.S. State Department confirmed the arrest, but declined to comment on any pending charges.

"The decision to arrest Mr. Erlinder was the responsibility of the Rwandan authorities," said State Department spokesman Andy Laine.

Laine said U.S. Embassy officials have been in contact with Erlinder, and have provided him with a list of attorneys to represent him in the Rwandan legal system. Laine said there is no evidence that Erlinder has been mistreated, but said he does not know where the law professor is currently being held.

Sarah Erlinder, the professor's daughter, said she spoke with U.S. State Department officials who confirmed her father's arrest.

Sarah Erlinder said officials told her that the State Department will not interfere with Rwanda's legal process, but will monitor the situation closely. She said she has not been able to speak with her father since his arrest.

Erlinder went to Rwanda to represent Victoire Ingabire, an opposition leader running against President Paul Kagame in Aug. 9 elections.

Kagame has been lauded abroad for social and economic reforms and is expected to win another seven-year term. But human rights groups say his administration has an ironclad hold on power and quashes opposing views.

Rwanda's 1994 genocide claimed the lives of more than 500,000 people, mostly Tutsis and moderate Hutus. The massacres ended when mostly Tutsi rebels led by Kagame defeated the mostly Hutu extremist perpetrators.

Ingabire, a Hutu, returned to Rwanda in January to contest elections after 16 years of living abroad. She says she returned to Rwanda because the country needs an open discussion to promote reconciliation.

She immediately visited a memorial to Tutsis killed in the 1994 genocide, and asked why Hutus who also died weren't remembered. She was arrested and freed on bail, but her passport was seized and she cannot leave Kigali. If convicted, Ingabire, 41, could be sentenced to more than two decades in prison.

Her case has become a test of where Rwanda stands in its effort to move past the genocide - and how much freedom the government will allow.

Erlinder is the president of an association of defense lawyers at the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda that is trying the masterminds of the 1994 genocide.

He "has been publicly saying that there was no genocide in Rwanda," said police spokesman Eric Kayiranga.

"It has nothing to do with diplomacy, it is totally a criminal case," said Kayiranga when asked whether the arrest could cause a diplomatic spat with the U.S.

Steve Linders, the spokesman for William Mitchell College of Law, said Erlinder's work in Rwanda was not sponsored by the school, but said William Mitchell professors have a long history of outside legal work for a variety of causes.

A lawyer since 1979, Erlinder, 62, has been on the William Mitchell faculty since 1982. He has worked as a litigator or legal consultant on numerous high-profile cases involving the death penalty, civil rights, alleged government or police misconduct and defense of political activism.

The St. Paul resident assisted in the legal defense of Mohammed Abdullah Warsame, a Canadian citizen who in 2009 pleaded guilty in federal court in Minneapolis to aiding al-Qaida.

He also represented Sami al-Arian, a former University of South Florida professor who pleaded guilty in 2006 to conspiring to aid terrorists.

Last November, Erlinder traveled to the Netherlands in order to aid in the defense of a Somali man from Minneapolis being held there on U.S. terrorism charges. He also recently advised Ojibwe Indian bands in northern Minnesota in a dispute over treaty fishing rights.

Linders said Erlinder has worked on legal issues involved Rwanda for some time, and had traveled to the country prior to his current trip.

The U.S. State Department said in a March report on Rwanda that citizens' rights to change their government are "effectively restricted" and cited limits on freedoms of speech, press and judicial independence.

Erlinder's family and his colleagues at William Mitchell are consulting with the state's congressional delegation in the hopes of pressuring the Rwandan government to release Erlinder immediately.

(Associated Press writer Edmund Kagire reported from Kigali, Rwanda)