Indigenous Peoples and Human Rights

May 27, 2022

Racist Rapid City: Hotel Owner Arrested for Spraying Lakotas with Chemical Spray During Protest




While spraying Lakota protesters, hotel owner Connie Uhre tells demonstrators
that the spray substance is "bug spray."

Racist Rapid City: Hotel Owner Arrested for Spraying Lakotas with Chemical Spray During Protest

By Brenda Norrell
Censored News
May 27, 2022

RAPID CITY, South Dakota -- In this city that is synonymous with bordertown racism, the owner of a hotel here was arrested Friday after spraying Lakotas with a chemical spray as they protested racism at the Grand Gateway Hotel.

Grand Gateway Hotel owner Connie Uhre sprayed several Lakotas who were boycotting racist treatment by the hotel with Pledge. Uhre was charged with three counts of simple assault.

Sunny Red Bear, director of racial equity at NDN Collective, was sprayed directly in the face.

“This is what we mean when we say that white supremacy is violent,” said Sunny Red Bear, racial equity director at NDN Collective. “No matter how long they lie dormant, peoples’ racist worldviews eventually come out in their actions.

May 26, 2022

Wixarika Walked 32 Days to Mexico City for Return of their Land: Press Conference Today


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On April 25, 2022, more than 200 members of the community of San Sebastián Teponahuaxtlán and its annex Tuxpan de Bolaños, belonging to the Wixárika people and located in the municipalities of Mezquitic and Bolaños, Jalisco, started a caravan on foot that seeks to reach to Mexico City and demand from the head of the federal executive power the restitution of more than 11,000 hectares of communal land located on the borders of Jalisco and Nayarit.

Wixárika Dignity and Consciousness Caravan Program in Mexico City

“Our feet are tired, but we are more tired of waiting for justice so that our lands are restored to us."

 May 26

5:00 a.m. Exit of the Marchioness, Route: Constituyentes, Highway Reforma Interior Circuit
1:00 p.m. Reception of the Caravan at the Antimonument at 43
2:00 p.m. Press conference at the Antimonument at 43
16:00 hrs Restarts the Caravan to the Basilica of Guadalupe
Route: Reforma Calzada de Guadalupe
18:00 hrs Arrival at the Basilica of Guadalupe
8:00 p.m. Overnight on the esplanade of the Basilica

Fort Berthold's Oil and Gas Wells: Toxins Endanger Thousands of Children and Adults


Flares burn on the Fort Berthold Indian on Oct. 27, 2021. Credit: Isaac Stone Simonelli/Howard Center for Investigative Journalism

NEW ANALYSIS: Oil and gas production in North Dakota threatens the health of 38,239 residents including 10,660 children 
Map Data Shows EPA Must Strengthen Newly Proposed Safeguards to Protect Public Health, Climate

Dakota Resource Council
Sean Arithson, Communications Coordinator sean@drcinfo.com
Earthworks Alan Septoff, Earthworks | aseptoff@earthworksaction.org

BISMARCK, North Dakota -- A new geospatial analysis released by Earthworks today shows 38,239 residents, including 10,660 children, reside near or attend schools or daycares within a ½ mile threat radius of active oil and gas operations in North Dakota.

This analysis comes as the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) works to finalize their widely supported proposed safeguards to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and associated toxic air pollution from new and existing oil and gas facilities and as they prepare to introduce a supplemental rule to address routine flaring and smaller leak-prone wells.

“The Oil and Gas Threat Map confirms what those of us living on Fort Berthold Reservation already know, North Dakota’s Oil and Gas development puts tens of thousands of adults and children in harm's way. Our state, federal, and tribal governments and regulators must reign in this industry and protect the air we breathe. I urge EPA and BLM agencies to take this opportunity and put an end to routine flaring and venting which plague our communities.” Lisa DeVille, Mandaree, ND Board member Dakota Resource Council and Fort Berthold Protectors of Water and Earth Rights.

May 25, 2022

Mohawk Nation News 'Mohawk Mothers Give Red Light to Royal Vic Project'

MOHAWK MOTHERS GIVE RED LIGHT TO ROYAL VIC PROJECT Audio

Mohawk Nation News 

Audio at MNN

https://mohawknationnews.com/blog/2022/05/24/mohawk-mothers-give-red-light-to-royal-vic-project-audio/

MNN. May 25, 2022. This is all about theft of indigenous land. Never mentioned in the OCPM report or news stories today is that all the land is unceded kahnienkehaka mohawk territory since time immemorial. Land is the only issue. No invader can produce ownership or rightful occupation of any land on turtle island. They are trespassers. Only the indigenous can give permission for everything. We are placed here by creation since time immemorial.  Mainstream media misled the public by saying that the project got the “green light” when OCPM has no decision-making power. The kahnistensera on the other hand have all the power [kasastenserakowa sa oiera] and have given the red light to this project of the foreigners to our lands.

Montreal Mayor said: “We need to make sure, if there’s any doubts, if we think that maybe there’s potentially graves there, we need to do it right” https://globalnews.ca/video/8866727/plans-for-old-royal-victoria-hospital-get-approval-stamp-despite-opposition/ They propose to set up a museum to display our remains to glorify the murders they have committed as a tourist attraction! 

May 24, 2022

New Report: Dine' in San Juan Basin Live Dangerously Close to Oil and Gas Wells


These natural gas wells in the San Juan Basin of northwest New Mexico glow as excess gas is flared from the wells.
Credit: WildEarth Guardians/flickr


May 24, 2022
Contact: Alan Septoff for Earthworks, aseptoff@earthworksaction.org, 202-271-2355
Camilla Feibelman, Sierra Club - Rio Grande Chapter camilla.feibelman@sierraclub.org, 505.715.8388

NEW ANALYSIS: 144,377 New Mexicans, including 38,749 children, Threatened by Oil and Gas Industry Air Pollution

Map Data Shows EPA Must Strengthen Newly Proposed Safeguards to Protect Public Health, Climate, following New Mexico’s lead

Carlsbad, NM - A new geospatial analysis released by Earthworks today shows 144,377 New Mexicans including 38,749 children, reside near or attend schools or daycares within a ½ mile threat radius of active oil and gas operations. In the San Juan Basin nearly 80% of the population lives within this radius. In the NM Permian Basin the map shows a nearly 40% increase in Eddy County alone of people living within the threat radius since 2017. This analysis comes as the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) works to finalize their widely supported proposed safeguards to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and associated toxic air pollution from new and existing oil and gas facilities and as they prepare to introduce a supplemental rule to address routine flaring and smaller leak-prone wells. New Mexico's recently finalized methane and ozone precursor rules set a strong floor for federal rules that would protect all communities like those in Texas, where regulations are limited, and along its border in New Mexico.

Dine' Elsie Begay honored with Honorary Lifetime Achievement Award at International Uranium Film Festival



Navajo Grandmother Elsie Begaye honored with Honorary Lifetime Achievement Award
by International Uranium Film Festival

By Brenda Norrell
Censored News
Watch video of the presentation
Watch the movie 'The Return of Navajo Boy'

"The people could have still been alive," says Dine' Grandmother Elsie Begay as she describes how Dine' were never told about the dangers of radiation and uranium mining. 

"This movie not only brought back my brother, but it is helping people," Begay said of the movie, 'Return of Navajo Boy.'

Dine' grandmother Elsie Begay, 83, of Monument Valley was honored with the Honorary Lifetime Achievement Award from the International Uranium Film Festival. Begay received her award in Dine' and English languages yesterday.


May 23, 2022

Maori Film Fest Features Indigenous Fight to Protect Chaco






Our Story - The Indigenous Led Fight to Protect Greater Chaco

In the Pueblo and Dine' homelands, all roads led to Chaco, the center for trade and commerce. Today, oil and gas drilling are destroying sacred places. The new film, 'Our Story -- The Indigenous Led Fight to Protect Greater Chaco,' is being shown at film festivals worldwide.

Michael Ramsey, Daniel TsoUnited States | English | 2021 | 46min | Color | Maoriland Film Festival | Colonisation, Environmental, Political, Sovereignty | Maoriland Film Festival | New Zealand Premiere

Ninety percent of the available lands in the Greater Chaco have already been leased for oil and gas extraction. Over the course of three years, Navajo and Pueblo leadership including Secretary of the Interior Deb Haaland (Laguna Pueblo), Julia Bernal (Sandia Pueblo), and Navajo Nation Council Delegate and co-director Daniel Tso have been intimately collaborating to tell their stories in this film as they struggle to protect what little remains of this sacred landscape, including the World Heritage Site Chaco National Historical Park in the SW United States.
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May 22, 2022

Mohawk Nation News 'Mohawk Mothers Strategy on Quebec's Forced Language 'Order''

 

MOHAWK MOTHERS STRATEGY ON QUEBEC’S FORCED LANGUAGE ‘ORDER’ Audio


 

Mohawk Nation News

Listen to audio at MNN:

https://mohawknationnews.com/blog/2022/05/23/mohawk-mothers-strategy-on-quebecs-forced-language-order-audio/

Audio Player

MNN. May 23, 2022. Almost 80 years ago Indian day school teachers tried to make us speak French in kahnawake. We took the exam paper which was in French, signed our name, and handed it back blank. They exclaimed, “Eeez no use. They won’t speak French”.  We were exempted from the ‘canadien’ [squatters] stranglehold.  This commentary applies equally to English.


May 19, 2022

Sikowis and Nick Estes: The Failed System, Schemes of Non-Profits and A Regenerative Future


Bioneers moderator Alexis Bunten, Nick Estes, Sikowis Nobiss

Sikowis and Nick Estes: The Failed System, Schemes of Non-Profits and A Regenerative Future, at Bioneers

By Brenda Norrell
Censored News


SAN FRANCISCO -- Nick Estes, Lakota professor and co-founder of The Red Nation, and Sikowis, founder of Great Plains Action Society, described the Christian Colonial Capitalism, imperialism and theft of Native land that led to the current failed system and deceptive schemes of non-profit philanthropy.

"We don't need to cry on the shoulder of white men who stole our land for funding --  even though they are morally obligated in my opinion," said Estes, Lower Brule Sioux, transitioning to be a professor at the University of Minnesota. Estes is co-founder of The Red Nation and founder of Red Media.

Speaking at the Bioneers Conference in San Francisco, Estes and Sikowis described the failed system of capitalism in the United States, insidious with fascism, and the economy based on theft of land, the enslavement of blacks, and genocide of Indigenous People.

May 18, 2022

Mohawk Nation News 'Indigenous Only Languages on Turtle Island'

INDIGENOUS ONLY LANGUAGES ON TURTLE ISLAND Audio

 

Mohawk Nation News 


 Audio at MNN 

https://mohawknationnews.com/blog/2022/05/18/indigenous-only-languages-on-turtle-island-audio/

MNN. May 18, 2022. The indigenous refuse to speak the bastardized language of Quebecois known as  French ‘canadien’. All indigenous languages based on the natural world are true since time immemorial because nature has not changed. Quebecois are trying to force the foreign language of French on the original people of Quebec, a colony on onowarekeh turtle island. Basic natural human right is for everyone to have their own natural identity based on language, culture, religion, beliefs, their natural way of life and sovereignty. Equality means being sovereign on their own land where creation originally placed them.

Forcing a foreign language upon indigenous people is a violation of indigenous ways.  

May 16, 2022

Sisters in Defense of the Amazon Rainforest: Oil Companies Bring Terror to Ecuadorian Amazon



Sisters in Defense of the Amazon Rainforest: Oil Companies Bring Terror to Ecuadorian Amazon, at Bioneers

By Brenda Norrell
Censored News

In the Headwaters of the Amazon.

"They blew up the ground and blew away the spirits of our ancestors."

They tortured her relatives and threatened to rape the young girls.

Nina Gualinga, and her sister Helena, told the Bioneers Conference of the terror, and climate change, that the oil companies had brought to their community of Sarayaku, where they swam in the Bobonaza River as children.

May 15, 2022

Rights of Nature: Attorneys Describe Emerging Movement in Indian Country


At the Bioneers Conference, "Rights of Nature: From Grassroots to Mainstream." Moderator Alexis Bunten with attorneys Thomas Linzey; Frank Bibeau, Chippewa; Samantha Skenandore, Ho-Chunk/Oneida.


Rights of Nature: Attorneys Describe Emerging Movement in Indian Country, at Bioneers

By Brenda Norrell
Censored News
May 14, 2022

SAN FRANCISCO -- Attorneys in the forefront of writing Constitutional laws for the Rights of Nature, and taking the battle to the courtrooms, described the emerging movement upholding the inherent rights of ecosystems.

What will it look like when a forest has its own rights?

During the three-day annual Bioneers Conference, attorneys described the legal battle to honor nature -- the relatives of the people -- and halt the corporate destruction.

Nick Estes and Sikowis at Bioneers, Sunday, May 15, 2022




Nick Estes, PhD, cofounder of The Red Nation, and Sikowis, founder of the Great Plains Action Society, today at Bioneers, at San Francisco Palace of Fine Arts and in the virtual conference.

Nick Estes speaks on "The Age of the Water Protector and Climate Chaos" this morning at Bioneers

Censored News original series from talks and panels at Bioneers

Sikowis and Nick Estes: 
The Failed System, Schemes of Non-Profits and a Regenerative Future

Sisters in Defense of Amazon Rainforest
Oil Companies Bring Terror to Ecuadorian Amazon

Rights of Nature Attorneys Describe Emerging Movement in Indian Country


By Bioneers
Censored News
Register at:

Nick Estes, Ph.D. (Kul Wicasa/Lower Brule Sioux), is an Assistant Professor of American Studies at the University of New Mexico and a member of the Oak Lake Writers Society, a group of Dakota, Nakota, and Lakota writers. In 2014, he was a co-founder of The Red Nation in Albuquerque, NM, an organization dedicated to the liberation of Native people from capitalism and colonialism.

May 14, 2022

'Daughters for Earth: Women and the Climate Change Movement' at Bioneers



Daughters for Earth: Women and the Climate Change Movement

Women discuss the impacts of climate change and the search for personal healing, during today's three day Bioneers Conference at the Palace of Fine Arts in San Francisco and the virtual conference

By Bioneers
Daughters for Earth: May 14th | 4:30 pm to 6:00 pm Pacific time
Register to watch the virtual conference online

Women all over the globe, especially in the “developing world,” are the ones who most often bear the brunt of having to contend with the radical disruptions visited upon their families and communities by climate change and environmental degradation, yet women’s voices are far too often ignored.

Furthermore, climate change and physical and psycho-spiritual health are almost always discussed as separate issues, but the personal and the political, the heart and the mind are not just interconnected, they are all one.

Rights of Nature, Stop Line 3: Attorneys Panel at Bioneers




Today: Rights of Nature, Stop Line 3: Attorneys Panel at Bioneers

Attorneys in the forefront of the Rights of Nature and the legal battle to Stop Enbridge's Line 3 in Minnesota

Censored News original series from talks and panels at Bioneers

Sikowis and Nick Estes: 
The Failed System, Schemes of Non-Profits and a Regenerative Future

Sisters in Defense of Amazon Rainforest
Oil Companies Bring Terror to Ecuadorian Amazon

Rights of Nature Attorneys Describe Emerging Movement in Indian Country

By Bioneers
Saturday, May 14, 2022, Pacific time pm 2:45 to 4:15 pm
Watch online today during the virtual program.
Register at:

Rights of Nature: From Grassroots to Mainstream

The “Rights of Nature” movement seeks to protect rivers, mountains, and entire ecosystems and the life forms supported within them by recognizing and enshrining their rights in formal legal codes and constitutions.

This legal framework offers a radically different worldview from current legal premises. Instead of being seen as property, nature as a whole and its various components would be formally recognized to have inherent rights to exist, persist, flourish and evolve, and these would be protected under the law.

May 13, 2022

Bioneers Conference in San Francisco and Virtually: Indigenous Speakers, Panels and Films


Bioneers Conference in San Francisco and Virtually: Indigenous Speakers, Panels, and Films

Censored News original series from talks and panels at Bioneers

Sikowis and Nick Estes: 
The Failed System, Schemes of Non-Profits and a Regenerative Future

Sisters in Defense of Amazon Rainforest
Oil Companies Bring Terror to Ecuadorian Amazon

Rights of Nature Attorneys Describe Emerging Movement in Indian Country

By Brenda Norrell
Censored News
Schedule and registration:

SAN FRANCISCO -- Today, the Bioneers Conference begins at 9 am and continues May 13 -- 15, 2022, at the Palace of Fine Arts in San Francisco and virtually.

The three-day annual conference includes Indigenous speakers, panels and films. Featured speakers today focus on the protection of the Amazon, which will be broadcast online.

Today, during the Indigeneity panels in San Francisco, Native speakers focus on healing from residential school genocide. Ohlone lead discussions today on partnerships with Indigenous in the Bay area. Kickapoo Chef Crystal Wahpepah is also featured during the Indigeneity panels today.

Native authors will be present to sign new books. Native rights, protection of the natural world, climate justice, and Native foodways highlight the Indigenous panel discussions today, Saturday, and Sunday.

May 11, 2022

Canadian Cops: Misogyny, Racism and Violence Against Women: New Report

RCMP arresting Freda Huson, founder of the Unist’ot’en healing center, to clear the way for building a gas pipeline on Wet’suwet’en land (Narwhal2/10/20). (photo: Amber Bracken/Narwhal) Journalist Amber Bracken was arrested in November.


THE TOXIC CULTURE OF THE RCMP: MISOGYNY, RACISM AND VIOLENCE AGAINST WOMEN IN CANADA’S NATIONAL POLICE FORCE

A Report by The Canadian Feminist Alliance for International Action (May 2022)

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

The evidence of systemic discrimination and violence against women perpetrated by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) is shocking, and it is growing. This is the conclusion of a new report on Canada’s national police force issued May 9, 2022 by the Canadian Feminist Alliance for International Action (FAFIA). FAFIA says that it is time to act.

The Government of Canada is committed to “address[ing] the profound systemic inequities and disparities that remain present …in our core institutions” and to “accelerat[ing] action to reform the RCMP.” It is time for independent review and transformational change.

London Film Screening of 'Tolvanera' -- Gold Mining in Sonora Brings Death in the Struggle for Life




London Film Screening of 'Tolvanera' -- Gold Mining in Sonora Brings Death in the Struggle for Life 

by Brenda Norrell
Censored News

In Sonora, just south of the Arizona border, there is a struggle against an open pit gold mine that few have heard of. Thanks to the Zapatistas Tour for Life through Europe, and new friends in London, England, the film Tolvanera will be screened. The film tells of this struggle, and the screening brings global attention to those murdered and disappeared who have opposed it.

Caborca is 144 miles south of the Arizona border

Credit: Pie de Página The ejido (community) of El Bajío is located in the municipality of Caborca, Sonora, in the coastal region of northeastern Mexico.The ejido (community) of El Bajío is located in the municipality of Caborca, Sonora, in the coastal region of northeastern Mexico.

Plainsmen's Post provides background for the struggle and the film, in the article, "Tolvanera, When Finding Gold on Your Land is Your Death Sentence.

On the black screen voices are tense, frightened. “No, please,” begs a woman. They respond harshly: “Face down.” The journalist is recording with her phone without the armed group noticing. “Guys, we are reporters. They told us that there was an abandoned mine here and we went in to see ”. With their faces covered by ski masks with skulls and wielding long weapons, the men threaten them so that they do not return there. And the journalists leave. It was March 2018.

This is how many stories are silenced in Mexico, but in Tolvanera it is just the beginning of the documentary, selected this year at the Morelia Festival. The incident remained marked in the memory of one of those reporters, Ángel Melgoza (Zamora, Michoacán, 1992), who decided not to drop the subject and take it to the big screen. Over the years he continues to pull the thread to try to explain the complicated skein of corruption, illegality, violence and impunity that surrounds the struggle of the El Bajío ejido against the mining company Grupo Fresnillo, owned by billionaire Alberto Baillères.