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News > World

UN Condemns 'Inhumane' Abuse of Standing Rock Water Protectors

  •  Police mace protesters during a demonstration against the Dakota Access pipeline near the Standing Rock Indian Reservation in North Dakota, November 15, 2016.

    Police mace protesters during a demonstration against the Dakota Access pipeline near the Standing Rock Indian Reservation in North Dakota, November 15, 2016. | Photo: Reuters

Published 18 November 2016
Opinion

The U.N. special rapporteur says treatment of water protectors is “inhumane and degrading” and a violation of fundamental human rights.

On Tuesday, U.N. Special Rapporteur on the rights to freedom of peaceful assembly and association Maini Kiai issued a blistering condemnation of the militarized response to the Standing Rock water protectors' peaceful protest against the Dakota Access Pipeline.

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“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,” said Kia. “The right to freedom of peaceful assembly is an individual right, and it cannot be taken away indiscriminately or en masse.”

Kai suggested that the use of less-lethal munitions such as “rubber bullets, tear gas, mace, compression grenades and bean-bag rounds” against peaceful protestors who are “expressing concerns over environmental impact and trying to protect burial grounds and other sacred sites of the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe” is enough reason to halt the pipeline’s construction.

“I call on the Pipeline Company to pause all construction activity within 20 miles east and west of Lake Oahe,” said Kai.

The land defense action at Standing Rock continues as the Army Corps of Engineers announced that it needs more time to study and consult with the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe before making a final decision about granting crucial easement permits which would allow construction of the pipeline to continue.

Kai's report was issued on the same day as hundreds of protests – including demonstrations and blockades of related pipeline infrastructure – took place across the U.S. in solidarity with the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe. Over 400 arrests have been made since the beginning of the land and water defense action began last April.

“This is a troubling response to people who are taking action to protect natural resources and ancestral territory in the face of profit-seeking activity,” Kiai continued. “The excessive use of State security apparatus to suppress protest against corporate activities that are alleged to violate human rights is wrong and contrary to the U.N. Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights.”

Kelcey Warren, who is the CEO of Energy Transfer Partners, the company in charge of the project, said he is “100 percent” confident that construction will continue. Warren was a major donor to the campaign of President-elect Donald Trump, who himself has significant investments in the project.

Kai’s report was endorsed by other high-ranking U.N. officials, including special rapporteurs on drinking water, the environment, free speech, cultural rights and the rights of indigenous peoples.

 
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