President Biden Urged to Pardon U.S. Human Rights Attorney Steven Donziger
Letter Sent by Ten Prominent Attorneys Seeking to End “Illegal 936-Day Detention” On Misdemeanor Charge After Donziger Helped Win $9.5 billion Pollution Judgement
Laura Miller, Donziger’s Wife, Launches International Public Campaign to Free Him
Ten of the nation’s leading environmental and human rights attorneys have appealed to President Biden to pardon and release human rights attorney Steven Donziger. Donziger, whose illegal 936-day detention has incited international condemnation from the United Nations and musicians including Sting and Roger Waters, will launch a global campaign with supporters around the world to help seek his freedom.
The attorney letter to Biden is the latest in a decades-long legal fight between Amazon Indigenous groups and the multinational oil giant Chevron. In 2013, Donziger helped the Amazon communities win the largest pollution lawsuit in world history. Rather than pay the $9.5 billion (U.S.) ordered by courts in Ecuador, Chevron has spent much of the past decade litigating and harassing Donziger using at least 60 law firms and 2,000 lawyers.
The letter reads:
Dear Mr. President: We represent U.S. human rights lawyer Steven Donziger, and we write to request that you use your presidential authority to pardon Mr. Donziger, who has been targeted, persecuted, arrested, and jailed for his human rights work on behalf of thousands of Indigenous peoples in part of the Amazon. Following his conviction on misdemeanor contempt charges in a non-jury trial prosecuted by a private law firm with deep ties to the oil and gas industry, including prior representation of Chevron, Mr. Donziger has served the longest sentence for any lawyer for any misdemeanor offense in U.S. history– a total of 928 days between federal prison, house arrest and being sent to a half-way house.
As background, Mr. Donziger in 2013 helped Indigenous peoples and rural farmers in the Ecuadorean Amazon win a historic $9.5 billion (U.S.) pollution judgment against Chevron based on incontrovertible evidence the company deliberately dumped billions of gallons of cancer-causing toxic waste onto Indigenous ancestral lands, decimating five Indigenous peoples and causing massive health and economic problems that have haunted thousands of people for decades. Mr. Donziger’s mistreatment and prolonged detention of almost three years in a misdemeanor case rejected for prosecution by the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York has been condemned by the United Nations Working Group on Arbitrary Detention and has become an embarrassment for our country. We urge immediate action to pardon him, sending a signal that human rights lawyers who decide to take on uncomfortable cases against centers of power should not themselves become the target of a defamation and persecution campaign for their effective representation in seeking justice…
Read the rest of the letter here.
Simultaneous to the legal appeal, Donziger’s wife, Laura Miller, has issued a public request for support drawing comparisons to Ukrainians and others suffering human rights abuses. Her appeal reads:
As Steven’s wife, I want to first express our solidarity with the people of Ukraine and others around the world who live in war zones or are having their human rights violated. All injustices around the world are in some way connected. I think of this from MLK Jr.: “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.” Please keep that in mind as I give you an update on Steven’s incredible situation as we launch a new campaign to take his fight directly to the top of the U.S. government.
First, our son Matthew and I were greatly relieved last week when Steven returned home for the second time after being locked up for five additional days – this time in a halfway house in the Bronx where the windows were nailed shut and Steven was not allowed outside. We had no idea what to expect. We didn't know if Steven would return home the night he was taken by the Bureau of Prisons, or if he would be forced back to the Danbury prison. That was terrifying. Matthew saw his father leave in the morning not knowing when or even if he would return home.
I am uncomfortable being in the public eye, but I feel a need to share this experience. When I was told last December that Steven was being released from prison and returned to house arrest, I thought our lives would get easier. The reality is much different. Our lives have been massively disrupted on a daily basis. Steven often receives several calls per day from a for-profit surveillance company. These calls often occur in the middle of the night around 3 a.m. just for the sake of keeping tabs on Steven. This barrage of calls has left us sleep-deprived and on edge – as it is designed to do. The last two years obviously have been an emotional rollercoaster on many levels, but I am so proud of Steven for his ongoing advocacy on behalf of Indigenous peoples and farmer communities in the Amazon, for his amazing stamina, and for his eternal optimism in the face of the extraordinary attacks by Chevron and the fossil fuel industry.
One of our goals of course is to put an END to Chevron’s deliberate manipulation of our legal system to attack Steven and other Earth Defenders. And since U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland has been silent in the face of our demands for justice – specifically, our demand that the DOJ take back the unprecedented private prosecution of Steven by Chevron – we are now going straight to the top. Steven’s lawyers recently sent a powerful letter to President Joe Biden asking for a pardon which dozens of environmental justice and legal groups are supporting (You can read the letter here). The signatories are veritable Who’s Who of some of the most respected lawyers in the country: Martin Garbus and Ron Kuby, who represented Steven at trial; Natalî Segovia, one of the leading Indigenous rights lawyers in the world; Michael Tigar, a law professor at Duke; Jeanne Mirer, who leads the largest U.N. affiliated lawyer organization in the world; and Nadine Strossen, former President of the American Civil Liberties Union.
As the pardon letter states, Steven helped Amazon communities win a historic $9.5 billion pollution judgment against Chevron after the company deliberately dumped billions of gallons of cancer-causing toxic waste onto ancestral lands. Chevron’s dumping decimated five Indigenous peoples and caused massive health impacts that have destroyed the lives of thousands of people. Instead of cleaning up its toxic waste, Chevron chose to target Steven and our family with 60 law firms and 2,000 lawyers. The company manufactured false evidence, bribed a witness, and created entire websites to try to tarnish Steven’s good name. So far, the U.S. legal system has failed to correct these injustices. This experience has been a heartbreaking journey for our family and devastating for the Indigenous peoples of Ecuador.
To put maximum pressure on President Biden to deal with this directly, we need your help. We need to do the hard work that will ensure this lands directly on Biden’s desk. Our plan is to mobilize literally thousands of people to contact the White House directly. Please donate $2,500, $1000, $500, $250, $100, $50, or whatever you can to help fund the Free Donziger Defense Fund so we can convince President Biden to pardon Steven immediately.
Steven is more than a human rights attorney. He is my husband and a father. It’s beyond time for Steven to be pardoned and for this nightmare to end for both the people of Ecuador and our family.
Please help us by donating today.
Thank you,
Laura Miller