Two prominent Indigenous leaders this week separately pressed President Joe Biden on why he hasnt released Leonard Peltier from prison and signaled that tribal leaders and Native rights advocates plan to make this a priority issue in the 2024 presidential election.

Fawn Sharp, the president of the National Congress of American Indians, said in a Monday letter to Biden that he regularly talks about his commitment to strengthening the federal governments relationship with Native communities. But lost in that commitment is doing anything about Peltier, the Indigenous rights activist the U.S. government put in prison nearly 50 years ago after a trial riddled with misconduct and lies.

Enough is enough, Mr. President, said Sharp. After nearly five decades of imprisonment, this is now a matter of not only justice but mercy as well. We urge you to immediately commute the sentence for Leonard Peltier or support his petition for compassionate release.

In a Wednesday interview with HuffPost, Sharp, whose organization is the largest Indigenous rights group in the country and serves as a unified voice of all tribal nations, took a sharper tone than the more diplomatic one conveyed in her letter.

It is a choice, Sharp said flatly of Biden singularly having the power to free Peltier. Being silent on this issue, given all the facts, given all the advocacy, given all the issues raised by Indian Country, when it is your choice and youre the top person and you choose to ignore it, youve become complicit in this injustice for Indian Country.

In another letter sent to Biden on Wednesday, Suzan Harjo, a longtime Indigenous rights advocate and 2014 Presidential Medal of Freedom recipient, traced her professional history with the president from the 1970s through 2014. She praised him for being a strong supporter of restoring Native peoples rights, from his work on the Indian Child Welfare Act to the American Indian Religious Freedom Act to the Violence Against Women Act.

Mr. President, I have long admired your commitment to fighting injustice and to restorative justice, Harjo said. As you weigh the pleas of justice for Mr. Peltier, I call on your compassionate core and spirited record of fighting against injustice and for democratic institutions. Each and every person in this country deserves a fair trial and rectification if the institutions meant to protect them do not do so. Leonard Peltier deserves that.

The letters mark the first time that both leaders are publicly calling on Biden to free Peltier. HuffPost obtained copies of both letters, which you can read here and here .