[ One attorney described the blockade as "an outrageous abuse of
law enforcement authority serving the interests of the Enbridge
corporation against its environmental opponents."]
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COURT STOPS POLICE FROM BLOCKADING LINE 3 PROTESTER CAMP
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Kenny Stancil
July 23, 2021
Common Dreams
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_ One attorney described the blockade as "an outrageous abuse of law
enforcement authority serving the interests of the Enbridge
corporation against its environmental opponents." _
On July 23, 2021, a Minnesota court ordered Hubbard County police
officers to stop obstructing a driveway that leads to a Line 3
pipeline protest camp., Giniw Collective
IN A DEVELOPMENT PROGRESSIVES called
[[link removed]] a "huge
legal win in the fight against Line 3," a Minnesota court on Friday
ordered police in Hubbard County to stop impeding access to the Giniw
Collective's camp, where anti-pipeline activists have been
organizing opposition to Enbridge's multibillion-dollar tar sands
project.
The ruling comes less than a week after Tara Houska, an Indigenous
rights attorney and founder of the Giniw Collective, and Winona
LaDuke, an environmental justice advocate and co-founder of Honor the
Earth, filed
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for a temporary restraining order against Hubbard County, Sheriff Cory
Aukes, and the local land commissioner in northern Minnesota.
"We want to thank the court for informing Hubbard County about the
rights of property owners, and hope that the sheriff's continued
preoccupation with the repression of water protectors can be focused
on real criminals," LaDuke said
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Friday in a statement.
Last month, Aukes unlawfully blockaded a 90-year-old driveway that
serves as the only means of entry and exit to the Giniw Collective's
camp, which is a convergence point for Indigenous-led protests
against the expansion of the Line 3 pipeline. Police officers also
cited and arrested individuals who attempted to use the driveway to
travel to and from the camp.
According to
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the Center for Protest Law and Litigation, which represented the
plaintiffs alongside EarthRights International and local counsel
Jason Steck:
Under the pretext that the small portion of the driveway extending
from the camp's private property onto Hubbard County property is now
suddenly a "trail" and not designated for vehicular traffic local
sheriffs have either physically blocked access, at times by forming a
line of over 20 officers, several armed with clubs, or issued
citations to water protectors who have driven vehicles on the
driveway, even when delivering food, water, or other necessary
supplies.
The Sheriffs' departments in the region are being paid by funds from
the Enbridge pipeline corporation for their time spent acting against
the pipeline's opponents through a "Public Safety Escrow
Fund." Enbridge has paid more than $1 million to "reimburse" local
sheriffs' departments, effectively privatizing Minnesota's public
police forces in service to efforts to repress opposition to the
pipeline.
In response to the court's ruling, Houska said
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that "although much of the state appears to have forgotten who their
duty is owed to, I'm glad to see some refusing to bend to Enbridge and
instead choosing to uphold constitutional rights and basic tenets of
law."
"Just because the Hubbard County Sheriff and Hubbard County Attorney
are opposed to Native people protecting our homelands should not mean
they can engage in violent, unlawful repression without consequence,"
Houska added. "Giniw Collective is glad to have rightful access to
our home back."
By granting the plaintiffs' motion for a temporary restraining order
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(pdf), the court prohibited the county's law enforcement officials
from "barricading, obstructing, or otherwise interfering with access
to" the camp, and from arresting, threatening to arrest, or issuing
citations to passersby, unless requested by the property owner or
authorized users.
Line 3 opponents celebrated the court's ruling and vowed to seek a
permanent injunction to protect the constitutional rights of land
defenders and water protectors.
"The Hubbard County Sheriff has been served notice that his illegal
campaign of militarized harassment and obstruction against our clients
must end now," said
[[link removed]] Mara
Verheyden-Hilliard, director of the Center for Protest Law and
Litigation, a project of the Partnership for Civil Justice Fund. "Any
ongoing effort by him to blockade the camp, turn it into an open-air
prison, or criminalize people for coming to and from the property will
subject him to a contempt action."
"This has been an outrageous abuse of law enforcement authority
serving the interests of the Enbridge corporation against its
environmental opponents," Verheyden-Hilliard added. "We will be moving
for a permanent injunction to protect land defenders and water
protectors from these abuses."
Marco Simons, general counsel for EarthRights,
echoed Verheyden-Hilliard's message.
"This ruling is a decisive victory for our clients, Indigenous water
protectors exercising their constitutional rights to oppose the
expansion of the Line 3 pipeline," said
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Simons. "The sheriff admitted that this unprecedented interference
with access to private property was intended to target water
protectors protesting the Line 3 pipeline, and it follows a global
pattern of harassing environmental protectors. This order is an
important step toward listening to these communities and respecting
their property rights."
As _Common Dreams_ has reported
[[link removed]], climate justice and
Indigenous rights advocates are opposed
[[link removed]]to
the expansion of the Line 3 pipeline because it would send
[[link removed]] 760,000
barrels of tar sands oil every day from Alberta to
Wisconsin—crossing North Dakota and Minnesota, traversing more than
800 wetland habitats, violating the treaty rights of Anishinaabe
peoples, and putting current and future generations at risk of
polluted water and a degraded environment.
Not only does the spill-prone
[[link removed]] pipeline
threaten local ecosystems and communities, it would also exacerbate
the carbon pollution driving planetary heating, which is why
scientists and activists have described
[[link removed]] it
as a "climate time bomb."
Earlier this month, more than 200 activists, celebrities, Democratic
donors, and environmentalists sent
[[link removed]] a
letter demanding that President Joe Biden stop Enbridge's pipeline
project—like he did
[[link removed]] with
the Keystone XL pipeline on his first day in office—and to "firmly
establish the principle that we will move forward toward real climate
solutions."
That letter came after the Biden administration infuriated
[[link removed]] opponents
of Line 3 last month by filing a legal brief in support of the U.S.
Army Corps of Engineers' approval of the project under former
President Donald Trump.
The Biden administration's legal brief came less than three weeks
after the U.S. Department of Homeland Security repressed
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a mass mobilization of water protectors by using low-flying
helicopters to kick up sand and debris.
Biden's refusal so far to intervene on Line 3 has not deterred the
pipeline's critics from continuing to fight against it in court
and on the ground
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peaceful acts of civil disobedience that have, at times, halted
construction.
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