NEW YORK – The United States is using excessive force against protestors in North Dakota who are trying to stop an oil pipeline project that runs through land sacred to indigenous peoples, according to a United Nations human rights expert.
The North Dakota National Guard, law enforcement officials, and private security firms have used unjustified force in their response to opponents of the Dakota Access pipeline, said Maina Kiai, the UN Special Rapporteur on the rights to freedom of peaceful assembly and association.
Some 400 people who were held in detention during demonstrations have suffered what Mr. Kiai called “inhuman and degrading conditions.” He is concerned over both the scale of arrests and the conditions in which American citizens are being held.
“Marking people with numbers and detaining them in overcrowded cages, on the bare concrete floor, without being provided with medical care, amounts to inhuman and degrading treatment,” he said.
Protestors have reported facing rubber bullets, teargas, mace, compression grenades, and bean-bag rounds while voicing their concerns over the environmental impact of the pipeline and throughout their attempts to protect burial grounds and other sites that are sacred to the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe.
“Tensions have escalated in the past two weeks, with local security forces employing an increasingly militarized response to protests and forcibly moving encampments located near the construction site,” Mr. Kiai said in a news release issued by the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights.
While he acknowledged that some of the protests had become violent, he emphasized that the response should remain strictly proportionate and should not impact those who protest peacefully.
“The right to freedom of peaceful assembly is an individual right and it cannot be taken away indiscriminately or en masse due to the violent actions of a few,” stated Mr. Kiai, who added that the use of violence by some protestors should not be used as a justification to nullify the peaceful assembly rights of everyone else.
Energy Transfer LLC Corporation, the pipeline operator, said in an announcement on 8 November that the final phase of construction would start in two weeks – thus “wilfully” ignoring an earlier public statement by federal agencies, according to the expert.
“I call on the Pipeline Company to pause all construction activity within 20 miles east and west of Lake Oahe,” declared the Special Rapporteur.
Construction of the pipeline has continued despite the fact that in September, the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the rights of Indigenous Peoples called for its end. The Special Rapporteur, Victoria Tauli-Corpuz, cited serious risks to drinking water and potential destruction of the tribe’s lands. The tribe has been denied access to information and was excluded from consultations during the planning stages.
The 1,172 mile (1,890km) pipeline is designed to carry crude oil to a refinery near Chicago and is being built by the US Army Corps of Engineers and Energy Transfer.
Protestors say that several sacred sites of the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe have already been bulldozed. Construction work is now nearing the Missouri River, home to other sacred sites. Protestors believe that the project will create a major threat to the quality of their drinking water.
I’m not saying, what is going on is right, but Anyone who has worked the pipeline or around Native Americans will tell you the same. Contracts force you to hire NA, but they have a hard time showing up, or doing anything if they bother showing up. It is all about money, if they were offered more, they would be gone and forget the protests before the ink was dry on the check.
Export American oil —- then import foreign oil? Sounds like the big oil companies need to sell their foreign oil. Sell it to the chinese and sell American oil to Americans —–something is really fishy here! Let President Trump look at this BS. Could be worse – worth and mitchell county supervisors want the taxpayers to foot a 36 MILLION dollar pipeline for a large corporation – BS – and NO Hitlery schemes.
Nobody but Sanders? Steal the land and give less than 1% back? Country with least compassion? You are a simple liberal idiot. Blab at the mouth with shear disrespect for the truth! Only when you people burst that bubble you live within will you be able to see and respect things for what they are. Unfortunately that time will never come.
Watch Walk/mitchell county and Bartz worth county – not to be trusted !
This sounds like what Mitchell and Worth county supervisors are trying to pull off – a pipeline from our county (worth) to mitchell – they want the taxpayers of these 2 counties to cough up $36,000,000.00 for this upgrade. Let the mega gas company pay for it – Bullchit and payoffs by lobbyists for big business. Here in worthless county we already pay 5% of our property taxes to TIF – we don;’t need another 5% added for someones future? development. Pay for this yourself and quit putting a burden on the small guy.
What you say is true. They make millions in profit and then want the taxpayer to pay for improvements to their business so they can make more profit without having to pay for it. Damn politicians sell us out.
No one in Washington except Sanders gives a shit that this is being allowed to happen. You can’t steal people’s land, give them 1% of it back and then steal it a second time to use it for oil profits and creating massive environmental changes for people that use their land to sustain life. This is a global problem, and thank god the UN sees this. The protesters can take care of themselves. Someone needs to focus on the human rights violations against the tribes that are in danger AGAIN.
We are the country with the least compassion when it comes tout money. Money talks, and is apparently more important than life.
Bull Shit!
UN go home, you have screwed up more situations than you have ever solved. You have blood on your hands.
Who gives a shart what the UN thinks about anything?
The U.N. needs to stay out of our business and our country.