‘David Beat Goliath’ as Line 3 Water Defenders Win Protective Ruling
Indigenous water defenders and their allies on Tuesday celebrated a Minnesota court ruling protecting a Line 3 protest camp from illegal government repression.
Hubbard County District Judge Jana Austad issued a ruling shielding the Indigenous-led Giniw Collective’s Camp Namewag—where opponents organize resistance to Enbridge’s Line 3 tar sands pipeline—from local law enforcement’s unlawful blockades and harassment.
Moreover, the ruling follows months of litigation on behalf of Indigenous water protectors, whose legal team last year secured a temporary restraining order issued by Austad against Hubbard County, Sheriff Cory Aukes, and the local land commissioner for illegally blocking access to Camp Namewag.
“Today David beat Goliath in a legal victory for people protecting the climate from rapacious corporate destruction,” Mara Verheyden-Hilliard, director of the Center for Protest Law & Litigation at the Partnership for Civil Justice Fund, said in a statement.
“Massive sums of money flowing from the Enbridge corporation to the sheriff’s department fueled the outrageous blockade and repression of an Indigenous-led water protector camp as it acted against water protectors challenging Enbridge’s destruction of Native lands,” she added.
Also, indigenous activist and Giniw Collective founder Tara Houska, who is a plaintiff in the case, said that “15 months ago, the sheriff’s officials woke me up at 6:00 am and walked me down my driveway to a grinning sheriff holding a notice to vacate my years-long home.”
“That day turned into 50 squad cars on a dirt road and a riot line blocking my driveway,” she recalled. “Twelve people—guests from all over who came to protect the rivers and wild rice from Line 3 tar sands—were arrested and thrown into the dirt.”
Furthermore, EarthRights general counsel Marco Simons asserted that “the court’s ruling is a major rebuke to police efforts to unlawfully target water protectors and to interfere with their activities protesting the Line 3 pipeline.”
Originally published at Commondreams.org.
Have Your Say!
Have you been affected by the issues raised in this story? Please share your experiences by emailing haveyoursay@soundvision.com.
Please include a contact number if you are willing to speak to a Muslim Network TV’s representative. You can also get in touch in the following ways:
Tweet: @MuslimNetworkTV
We must take charge of our narrative. Research indicates that 92% of their Muslim coverage is negative. Help us change that.
