Thursday, January 31, 2019

Standing Rock -- 45 NODAPL Cases Dismissed, Warrants Quashed by Order of Judiciary

Press Release: 45 NoDAPL Cases Dismissed – Warrants Quashed Upon Review Ordered by Judiciary

Posted on January 31, 2019

ND prosecutors abandon dozens of cases due to no “good faith belief that the underlying charges can be proven”

(Bismarck, ND) On December 7, 2018, Water Protector Legal Collective received an early winter solstice gift that we have had to keep confidential until now. On behalf of the judiciary in the South Central Judicial District, North Dakota, Judge Gail Hagerty ordered the State’s Attorney’s office to review, within 30 days, all NoDAPL cases attached to 84 inactive warrants. Judge Hagerty wrote:

“If the State does not have a good faith belief that the underlying charges can be proven, the cases should be dismissed and the warrant withdrawn.”

It was an exhilarating and welcome turn of events, and there was more. Prompted by WPLC’s requests to the Court, two Supplemental Notices were issued, adding 10 more cases to the list of cases being reviewed. Suddenly, 94 warrant cases would finally need to meet at least this minimal Constitutional requirement – a standard even prosecutors had to admit could not be met for 45 of them.

But we had a concern: the temporary licenses for out-of-state volunteer lawyers to represent Water Protectors with warrants were set to expire on December 31, 2018, under the special provisions for NoDAPL cases that WPLC won back in January 2017. Worried that prosecutors might decide to go forward with some of the cases after our ability to renew these licenses had ended, WPLC went back to the Supreme Court and asked for an extensionuntil January 31, 2019, which was granted.

Today we can announce that the state has once again been forced to acknowledge what we have long known to be true—these charges were without merit and should never have been brought or pursued. These arrests were an improper use of police to prevent lawful activities, and the anxiety and harms inflicted on Water Protectors who have now also suffered through two years of meritless prosecution was further punishment by process.

“You’re a fugitive. It has a huge effect on you,” said Diné Water Protector Christian Espinosa whose warrant was one of the 45 quashed upon review. “My professional license was at risk. You can’t get certain jobs, your whole ability to navigate society, your standing, changes. It was all so arbitrary. No landowner ever said we were trespassing. The whole thing was baseless—an attack on our liberties and constitutional rights.”

Diné Water Protector Christian Espinosa at Last Child Camp on February 1, 2017,
just moments before he was slammed to the ground by law enforcement.

The WPLC Warrant Program

Karla Colon Aponte staffs the WPLC Warrant Team which was formed to conduct a focused outreach to warrant holders and work to resolve their cases. “Some had resolved their original cases and were unaware they’d been recharged,” she explained. “Others were hard to get ahold of because they live on reservation lands and/or don’t have physical street addresses, are out of cell range, or have Internet connectivity issues.”

WPLC staff and volunteers combed through court filings to locate contact information, and met weekly to brainstorm about how to resolve individual warrants. Sometimes it was a matter of paying outstanding fees or showing how the case was similar to cases already dismissed. Other times the Water Protector was reluctant to resolve their warrant because they’d been traumatized by brutal arrests; others, on ideological principles, rejected ceding authority to the North Dakota judicial system. For some of these cases, WPLC cooperating attorneys were able to arrange to have the warrants lifted and cases resolved without the Water Protector needing to return to North Dakota.

In spring of 2018, WPLC placed ads in community news outlets across Indian Country, and then conducted a summer Warrant Outreach Tour to pow-wows throughout North and South Dakota. Through this sustained effort, the team resolved 27 warrants even before Judge Hagerty’s Notice.

Aponte herself is a Water Protector and former warrant holder.

“One of my mottos whenever I went to the front lines was ‘nobody gets left behind.’ Reducing harm for my Water Protector family is important, and I’ve been doing my best because I stand with those who stood so boldly for clean water and Indigenous sovereignty.”

How Did These Warrants Arise in the First Place?

When the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe put out its call for people to come and stand with them against the construction of the DAPL pipeline that threatened the reservation’s water source and sacred sites, people from all over the country and the world, were pulled to Standing Rock to answer that call. They came to pray together and to protect the sacred and were consequently criminalized by police and a legal apparatus in thrall to the oil and gas industry.

WPLC, January 31, 2019

###

Water Protector Legal Collective (WPLC) is the on-the-ground legal team for the Dakota Access Pipeline resistance at Standing Rock. We continue to maintain a presence in North Dakota and provide legal advocacy, jail and court support, and civil and human rights protection to the Native peoples and their allies who gathered at the ceremonial resistance camps. Learn more at:

www.waterprotectorlegal.org

Las Vegas Review Published Racist Cartoon -- by Western Shoshone Ian Zabarte

Letter from Western Shoshone Ian Zabarte to Las Vegas Review Journal

Dear Mr. Ramirez,

Mr. Ian Zabarte

P.O. Box 46301

Las Vegas, NV 89114

January 29, 2019

The Las Vegas Review Journal

P.O Box 70

Las Vegas, NV 89125

Regarding: Racism and accessory to genocide.

Yesterday, January 18, 2019, the Las Vegas Review Journal published a propaganda cartoon in derogation of Native Americans using a stereotype of Indian alcoholism. Racism is an abuse no matter how softly or funny media represent its abuse.

The Las Vegas Review Journal fails as the fourth estate, a public trust, by under reporting, reporting one side on the issues affecting indigenous people or not reporting the truth or perspective of indigenous people. There is a genuine and pervasive failure of trust by the media to report the truth of issues concerning Indigenous people. It is media disservice to openness, freedom of information and democracy. The Shoshone people seek understanding and reconciliation and get abuse from the Las Vegas Review Journal. Similar abuse was reported in the recent submission to the UN International Convention on Civil and Political Rights as, propaganda in support of genocide

The point is that media bias and racism kill Indians. In 1850, California passed An Act for the Protection and Governance of Indians that authorized Indian hunters to take Indian hands and scalps for $25 and make slaves of Indians found not working. Slaves were taken until they showed miners where the gold was such as in the case of a Shoshone tortured to give the location of gold at Rhyolite. Killing Indians was common and 60% of the Shoshone in California were killed within our own treaty country for not being white. The Act was not fully repealed until 1967. Before any settler or miner saw an Indian, media propaganda was there.

Today, the media does not report Native American past exposure to radioactive fallout from US/UK secret nuclear testing and disproportionate burden of risk. The Shoshone people cannot endure any increased burden of risk from any source including resumption of WMD testing by US/UK, plutonium disposal from the Savanna River Site, depleted uranium disposal, proposed high-level nuclear waste disposal at Yucca Mountain, coal ash uranium or fracking released radiation.

We should all be offended by genocide. Beyond the historical pattern and practice of US abuse that may be genocidal, the Shoshone charge the US with violation of the UN Convention of Prevention and Punishment of Genocide in its recent submission to the UN International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. Genocide is a crime in the US since 1988 (18 USC 1091) and there is no statute of limitation. In 1990 the US Department of Energy created the Yucca Mountain Cultural Resource Study protocol of "cultural triage" defined as, "the forced choice decision-making by an ethnic group to a development project." Triage is a word of French origin that means to sort or cull according to quality. Its normal usage is flood, famine, natural disaster and just declared wars. There is no flood, famine or natural disaster and peace endures by treaty. What the Shoshone people experience is a deliberate intent by the US to systematically dismantle the living life-ways of the Shoshone people for the benefit of the US and the profit of the nuclear industry. This meets the minimum threshold of genocide under both the UN Convention and the US enactments of the crime of genocide. The motive for the US to is to defraud the Shoshone people of our property. The intent to commit genocide is the culture of secrecy because we will never know what is killing Indians in secret. Biased media does not help protect the Shoshone people by providing unbiased information of importance to indigenous people so we can take protective action.

Las Vegas Review Journal stop fanning the flames of hate and intolerance. We are all responsible for addressing genocide.

Sincerely,

Ian Zabarte Principal Man

Western Bands of the Shoshone Nation of Indians

Wednesday, January 30, 2019

Mohawk Nation News 'Up Against the Wall'

Read artice at MNN
http://mohawknationnews.com/blog/2019/01/30/up-against-the-wall/

Sunday, January 27, 2019

Dine' Jean Whitehorse tells personal story in new documentary : US Sterilization of Native Americans

Photo copyright Brenda Norrell, Censored News

New docmentary 'Ama' tells the story of Jean Whitehorse

Dine' Jean Whitehorse tells her story in a new documentary 'Ama'.
Here is the video that I recorded of Jean telling her life story at the annual AIM West conference, in November 2013. -- Brenda Norrell, Censored News
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=26-QlIGhXcE&fbclid=IwAR2SdZL-k_yIZzVbRl9jV5VX3v68gKkdmArH9TagG-g_OgtJdptnvZ61P80

UK Filmmaker releases new documentary 'Ama'

https://www.filmoria.co.uk/ama-compelling-documentary-from-lorna-tucker-releasing-to-uk-cinemas-from-6th-december/?fbclid=IwAR0z3YIFK3qOT4Kke9vbvekpVavhY-laayODSCl8BN8pdsoqjNamy6V15CI

Thursday, January 24, 2019

RUMBLE Native Music Censored by U.S. Inspires Generations

Rumble on PBS

By Brenda Norrell
Censored News

The underground music that kept the spirits alive, Rumble, The Indians who Rocked the World, is now on PBS.
Buffy Saint Marie explained in an interview at Dine' College how Presidents Johnson and Reagan put her out of the music business in the U.S. because of Universal Soldier, and her protest of the Vietnam war. That interview, my article as a staff reporter, was censored for 7 years by Indian Country Today, when the newspaper was owned by the Oneida Nation in New York.
The lyrics and sound were so dangerous to the U.S. government that it was a priority to silence it. Back on Navajoland, Chili Yazzie and XIT were the sound of a new generation of revolution, freedom and survival. -- Brenda, Censored News

Watch Rumble now online or on PBS. The great musicians include Taboo, who sang 'Stand Up,' standing up at Standing Rock.

http://www.pbs.org/independentlens/films/rumble/

Tuesday, January 22, 2019

Border Tribes to Begin Summit with Closed Meeting with Homeland Security

By Brenda Norrell

Censored News

PASCUA YAQUI -- A two-day Tribal Border Summit begins Thursday with a closed meeting between Tribal Leaders and U.S. Homeland Security, according to the agenda.

NCAI is among the hosts of the summit.

Along with Pascua Yaqui and Tohono O'odham tribal leaders in southern Arizona, St. Regis Mohawk, Puyallup and Pauma will be in the closed meeting.

Currently Trump is holding Congress and the workers of America hostage over construction of the proposed border wall. The shutdown of the U.S. government is the priority of Trump, reflecting the Apartheid of South Africa, the terror of Palestine and the regime of Hitler, an attempt to manufacture the oppression, isolation and government control of the Berlin Wall.

Since the time that the imaginary border line was drawn, Native Americans crossing the border in their homelands have faced constant abuse by the U.S. Border Patrol and ICE.

The abuse includes the U.S. Border Patrol running over Tohono O'odham in fatal incidents, the stalking of traditional O'odham women, and violent attacks on O'odham. The Border Patrol acts with reckless endangerment on the Tohono O'odham Nation, literally getting away with murder as it abuses all life.

Yaqui elders from Rio Yaqui in Mexico who come across to lead ceremonies are harassed, even turned back at Nogales, Arizona. The destruction of ceremonial items by U.S. and Canadian agents is carried out on both the northern and southern borders by agents who show no respect and act with impunity.

Traditional Native Americans living in their homelands now ask if they will have a voice on Thursday during the Tribal Leaders closed session, and be guardians involving any secret negotiations and pacts between elected tribal leaders, and the Trump administration's Homeland Security.

--Brenda Norrell, publisher Censored News

Peltier's Statement re: Nathan Phillips incident in DC

Omaha Elder Nathan Phillips

I just saw the incident taking place in Washington, DC in which a demonstration between the white Make America Great Again (MAGA) representatives and a Native Elder singing a religious song took a horrendous turn. There were threats and insults by the young punk wearing the red M.A.G.A. hat while an Elder, who happens to be my long time AIM friend and comrade Nate Philipps, was singing a religious song. Now, I see the media and folks changing it around like it was the Natives Elder fault.
Let me explain to you what the song's history is.

The Northern Cheyenne People gave this song to the American Indian Movement for an honor song in 1972 after the 71-day occupation of the Wounded Knee massacre grave site, which is now a memorial site, owned by a white person... can you believe that? Wounded Knee is a sacred area for the LAKOTA peoples, where over 350 Elders, men, children, and women with unborn babies still inside of their bodies were slaughtered. There are documented accounts of soldiers who opposed the killing of babies, however there were Calvary soldiers riding their horses around the massacre grounds waving their swords with dead babies on them. The Lakota who had disarmed themselves, given up their weapons of stone tomahawks, bows and arrows and hand thrown spears to the 7th Calvary and raised the white peace- and American flag, after an agreed truce between them.

The leader of the Lakota Band of Native's was a peace Chief named Bigfoot. The Calvary was heavily armed with portable cannons, rifles, steel bayonets and knives and pistols. The 7th Calvary soldiers were under orders of their commanding officers. After the captives had been fed and convinced they were safe, and the babies began to quiet down, and sleep under their now warm robes, did not see or hear what was about to happen. The Cavalry like thieves AND RAPIST in the DARK of night, surrounding them with those DEADLY Weapons. Early that next morning on Dec, 25th (Isn't that their Christens God Jesus Birthday?) after feeding the Natives their last breakfast meal they began to slaughter them, killing all who could not somehow escape.

A couple decades earlier this same Army of rapist of girls and boys, and murders of defenseless peoples surrounded a band of peaceful Northern Cheyenne's at Sand Creek and committed the very the SAME MURDEROUS ACT, AFTER FIRST APPROACHING THEM UNDER BOTH FLAGS 'the AMERICAN and WHITE FLAG'!!! When the Natives were given the flags, they were given a promise that if they exposed and flew these flags the Army would never attack them. Yet over a dozen soldiers were GIVEN MEDALS OF THE HIGHEST HONORS awards THE AMERICAN GOVERNMENT has to BESTOW. Their soldiers and civilians received these awards for this act of genocide, and called it a great victory of war. Today they call it "Make America Great Again"!

So, a decade or so later, BELIEVING IN THEIR OWN B.S. PROPAGANDA THAT THESE WERE VICTORIOUS BATTLES, these same murders with dozens of their traitors again attacked the Crow scouts during a religious ceremony the Sundance, at the Little Big Horn or Greasy Grass Creek. this was what we Natives named it. Only this time Crazy Horse and many other young powerful war leaders (we call SHIRT WEARERS of the Lakota Nations) and their allies the Cheyenne's were at the camp guarding the people, armed only with stone tomahawks bows and arrows against superior weaponry. They defended and wiped out Custer AND his band Of MURDERS and PAPIST OF CHILDREN AND HELPLESS ELDERS AND WOMEN AND BABIES.
On their way back to camp the young heroic Cheyenne warriors made up the song now known as the AIM song and rode into camp singing it, and the women and men joined in and the whole camp began to sing it.

The songs says Thank you to the great Spirit for allowing our young men to be brave AND courageous to FIGHT OFF AND TO PROTECT the young children THE WOMEN, UNBORN BABIES, THE ELDERLY WOMEN and MEN, AND OUR LEADERS. Singing THANK YOU Great Spirit for giving us the strength to SAVE OUR Children WITH THE BRAVERY YOU GAVE US. Thank you for showing us your Love for our Peoples. We pray you give us peace with these people who only want war and to kill our Nations/Peoples. This is the meanings behind the words of the Aim song.
So, this young man stood there acting like he was making fun of our religious leader, and smirking like he was superior to him. Someone should have been there to remind him about the over twenty-five children in the Catholic School on the Navajo Nations fifteen or so years ago. Not too mentioning the high numbers of evil crimes done to us in the past hundred years! Hundreds of Native Children had been raped and the priest responsible received as punishment a transfer to another church. Most of the Indian Boarding schools even had THEIR OWN GRAVE YARDS. Some with as high as 200 unmarked graves! This is what those kids were demanding, to return to those days when to them America was great.

In the spirit of Crazy Horse.
Doksha,

Leonard Peltier

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About Censored News

Censored News is published by Brenda Norrell, a journalist in Indian country for 37 years. Norrell created Censored News after she was censored and terminated as a staff reporter at Indian Country Today in 2006. She began as a reporter at Navajo Times during the 18 years that she lived on the Navajo Nation. She was a stringer for AP and USA Today and later traveled with the Zapatistas through Mexico. She has been blacklisted by all the paying media for 13 years. Contact brendanorrell@gmail.com