Border Wall Construction Destroys 1,000 Year Old Sacred Place of Hia-Ced O'odham

Tohono O'odham Nation: 'Devastating and Entirely Avoidable Loss'

Border Wall Construction Destroys 1,000 Year Old Sacred Place of Hia-Ced O'odham

Democracy Now!

https://democracynow.org/donate/sm-de...

Construction crews in Arizona who are building President Trump’s expanded border wall have razed a portion of a Native American archeological site in the Sonoran Desert estimated to be at least 1,000 years old. Aerial photos reveal that bulldozers caused extensive damage to a 280-by-50-foot etching in the desert sand known as an intaglio, which holds special significance for the Hia-Ced O’odham people.

Lorraine Marquez Eiler, co-founder of the International Sonoran Desert Alliance and an elder of the Hia-Ced O’odham, says locals informed both the work crews and Border Patrol officials about the significance of the intaglio. “On Thursday, late afternoon, they were still talking about how to protect the area and went home feeling that they were still working together. On Friday, for whatever reason, the contractors bulldozed the area,” says Marquez Eiler. 

Victory for Lakota Youths Protecting Sacred Pe'Sla

 Victory for Lakota Youths 

Protecting Sacred Pe'Sla

"We stopped the drilling, this is a victory for the Oceti Sakowin," Lakota youths said as the drilling rig drove out of sacred land.

https://www.instagram.com/reels/DX-nedjMmUg/

Company withdraws from controversial Black Hills exploratory drilling project

By:Seth Tupper-May 8, 2026

South Dakota Searchlight

A company that’s being sued for exploratory drilling near a culturally significant site in South Dakota’s Black Hills is withdrawing from the project, according to a letter shared with project opponents.

The opponents include the Black Hills Clean Water Alliance, which posted a copy of the letter and a statement Friday on social media.

U.N. Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues' Final Priorities -- Climate Change, Women's Rights, and Repressions, 2026

U.N.  Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues' Final Priorities -- Climate Change, Women's Rights, and Repressions, 2026

U.N. Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues 2026

By Brenda Norrell, Censored News, May 1, 2026

NEW YORK -- The priorities of the U.N. Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues included climate change, forced sterilization, repressions and the rights of refugees, as Indigenous Peoples concluded the two-week session on Friday in New York. 

The dialogue on climate change was the first priority in the draft final statement. It recognizes positive efforts led by Australia, First Nations in Canada, and Brazil. The next priority is the recognition of the right of the Arab Emirates just transition work program. The just transition involving minerals and 'green transition' follows as the priority

Cree Dene Mskwaasin Agnew to Join Freedom Flotilla 'Letter on the Siege on Gaza'

"This Warrior Flag was actually at Standing Rock," said Mskwaasin Agnew, Cree Dene on the Freedom Flotilla to Gaza today. This flag also flew at the Wet'suwet'en's Gidimt'en Checkpoint. The women also brought an Anishinaabe flag that flew at 1492 Land Back Lane at Six Nations. Remembering the photos of the Warrior flag in Jabalia in Gaza, she said, "This is a symbol of Global Indigenous Solidarity, and Global Indigenous Solidarity means that none of us are free until all of us are free." Agnew said, "I have joined the Freedom Flotilla Coalition to break the siege on Gaza with Dr. Suzanne Shoush and fellow comrades from Turtle Island. Break the siege on Gaza NOW! Solidarity to the global Indigenous resistance."

New! Peltier talks with AIM Minnesota about Treaty Rights and more

Leonard Peltier video interview by AIM Twin Cities Minnesota

Leonard Peltier Speaks on Unified Action to Protect Treaties

"The American Indian Movement has been one of the most successful organizations, at least in my time, in getting our recognition back, in getting our culture back." -- Leonard Peltier.

Leonard Peltier shares a gift from Bolivia's Evo Morales, a tribute to Bolivia's great Indigenous warrior and rebel leader Túpac Katari, during today's interview with AIM Twin Cities Minnesota. (Video screenshot Censored News)

Video interview by AIM Twin Cities Minnesota

https://www.facebook.com/AIMTwinCities/videos/572922935848584

Censored News, May 25, 2025

TURTLE MOUNTAIN, North Dakota -- Leonard Peltier spoke on the need for protecting the Treaties, standing in unity, and encouraged changing the name of the American Indian Movement to the American Indigenous Movement, in an interview with AIM Twin Cities Minnesota today.

"We're not Indians. We're not from India. What I would like to do, and I've thought about it for a number of years now, laying in my cell, that we should change our name to what we really are, the American Indigenous Movement."

Women Leading Solutions on the Frontlines of Biodiversity and Climate Crisis in Colombia

"We are never to be bought and sold, we are never to be enslaved," said Casey Camp-Horinek, Ponca, urging women to rise up against the false solutions of carbon credits, and rescue the rivers, land and air from the corporations poisoning the Earth for future generations.

Press Conference: Women Leading Solutions on the Frontlines of Biodiversity and Climate Crises

Watch instant replay now:

http://webtv.un.org/en/asset/k1r/k1rvk86l8b

Friday, October 25, 11:00 - 11:30 AM (COT)

The Media Center, Blue Zone, CBD COP16 Cali, Colombia

Frontline and Indigenous women leaders and global advocates will present solutions and strategies to tackle the interlinked biodiversity and climate crises, emphasizing the importance of gender equity, food sovereignty, forest protection and reforestation, traditional ecological knowledge, Free Prior and Informed Consent (FPIC), protection of environmental human rights defenders, and financing genuine solutions in the Global Biodiversity Framework.

Brazil's Indigenous Women at Biodiversity Convention in Colombia

Indigenous women leaders from Brazil and WECAN at the UN Biodiversity Convention in Colombia today

'We are the Guardians of the Planet'

Deputy Célia Xakriabá (Xakriabá), Federal Deputy in Brazilian Congress in the state of Minas Gerais, Brazil, and co-founder of the National Articulation of Indigenous Women Warriors of Ancestrality (ANMIGA), Brazil (Screenshot Censored News)

Indigenous Women from Brazil: Calls for Action to Protect Biodiversity, Indigenous Rights and Climate

By Brenda Norrell, Censored News, Oct. 24, 2024

CALI, Colombia -- Indigenous women leaders from Brazil defending their rivers, forests and people, spoke with courage and the fire of their ancestors at the United Nations Biodiversity Convention.

"We sing because when we sing together, we don't feel that we are alone," said Deputy Célia Xakriabá, Federal Deputy in Brazilian Congress, and co-founder of the National Articulation of Indigenous Women Warriors of Ancestrality.

"All of our lands, all of our rivers are being murdered," Xakriaba said during the press conference today of Women's Earth and Climate Action Network.

Indigenous Russian Human Rights Defenders Targeted by Russian Government Appeal to United Nations

https://icipr.international/archives/1053

Indigenous Russian Human Rights Defenders Targeted by Russian Government Appeal to United Nations

"We are reaching out to you regarding the egregious act committed by the Russian government, which simultaneously included 55 organizations of indigenous peoples of Russia, fighting for their rights, in the list of extremist and terrorist organizations."

"According to the legislation of the Russian Federation, from now on any participation in the activities of these organizations, cooperation, or even communication with them threatens years of imprisonment for each representative of the indigenous peoples of Russia." Continue reading: https://icipr.international/archives/1053

The Voices of Russia's Anti-War Indigenous Women Denied Credentials at U.N. are Heard Anyway

Photo Yana Tannagasheva addressing U.N. https://vimeo.com/981992869
 

The voices of Russia's anti-war Indigenous activists who were denied credentials were heard anyway at the U.N. Expert Mechanism on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples in Geneva. They told the U.N. that Russia needs mineral industries to wage its wars, and is asserting pressure at the U.N.

Oral intervention by Yana Tannagasheva, International Committee of Indigenous Peoples of Russia, to U.N. Expert Mechanism on Rights of Indigenous Peoples 2024. 

Censored News, July 11, 2024

Russian translation

Thank you, Mr./Madam Chair, for the floor.

The Russian government talks all the time about the colonialism of IP (Indigenous Peoples) in other countries but has never said that the IP of the North, Siberia and the Far East were also colonized and continue to suffer. The everyday reality of the Indigenous Peoples of Russia is profoundly different from the rights described by Russian government and some of non-independent Indigenous representatives from Russia.

The Mother Tongue: Countering the Identity Thieves of Canada, Russia, Japan and U.S.

Photo: Indigenous Youth, Food Knowledge and Arctic Change

The Mother Tongue: Recovering Indigenous Languages from the Identity Thieves of Canada, Russia, Japan and United States

By Brenda Norrell, Censored News, July 16, 2024

Updated July 28, 2024: More from Russia and Japan

GENEVA -- Indigenous languages are on the verge of extinction in Russia. An ancient language in Japan is denied recognition by the government, while Native Americans struggle to recover from the torture in boarding schools that was meant to silence them. In Canada, efforts are underway to revitalize Anishinaabe after Native languages and culture were targeted with erasure in residential schools, presenters  told the United Nations Expert Mechanism on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.

With Indigenous languages near extinction in Russia, an Indigenous youth from a reindeer herding community near the Arctic tundra, said newspapers are still  important here and are helping preserve the language, Nenets, among the endangered languages, in the vanishing north.

"Despite the decline in circulation of paper newspapers in the era of digitalization, our national newspaper retains an important role in the life of the people, clearly addressing their current agenda and giving ethnic journalists and language activists the opportunity to write in their native language," Nechei Serotetto, Indigenous youth from the Russian Arctic, told the United Nations Expert Mechanism.

"Moreover, the newspaper allows informing about twenty thousand Nenets of the Autonomous Okrug who are nomadic thousands of kilometers away and do not always have access to satellite internet coverage."

In Japan, speaking an ancient language was punishable by death.

Today, Japan refuses to recognize the language, the Lew Chewan/Okinawan languages, and its people. After Japan's annexation of the Lew Chew kingdom in 1879, the languages faced prohibition, Risako Sakai, ACSILs, told the United Nations.

"During WWII, the Japanese military ordered that speaking in Lew Chewan languages could result in execution, leading to the marginalization and near extinction of our native languages. In fact, the Japanese military executed Okinawans for speaking Indigenous languages, calling us “spy."

Josh Gandier. Photo Southern Chief's Organization, Censored News

"My own hope for this decade is to see the restoration, formation and protection of intergenerational connections between youths, language keepers and communities," said Southern Chiefs Organization's youth delegate Josh Gandier, Peguis First Nation.

Lakotas for Palestine Attacked in Hate Crime in Rapid City

Lakotas for Palestine Attacked in Hate Crime in Rapid City

Lakota Statement , Censored News, July 24, 2024

RAPID CITY, South Dakota – On Saturday, July 20th, we traveled to Mni Luzahan to support the International Indigenous Youth Council for a peaceful rally for Palestine. The rally was co-sponsored by ally group SD4Pal. Within 5 minutes of our arrival, this worker began heckling us from the lawn of City Hall, where she was working.

Kayapó Forest Defenders Urge United Nations to Help Halt Illegal Gold Mining in Brazil

Doto Takak Ire, leader of the Menkragnoti Indigenous Land 📷 Fred Mauro/Terra Floresta Filmes/ISA

Kayapó Forest Defenders Urge United Nations to Help Halt Illegal Gold Mining in Brazil

By Brenda Norrell, Censored News, July 23, 2024

GENEVA -- Indigenous from Brazil urged the United Nations to join them and demand Brazil halt illegal gold mining, and its mercury contamination, now destroying the ancestral homelands of Kayapó, Yanomami and Munduruku Peoples, during the U.N. Expert Mechanism on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.

Doto Takak Ire, Mebêngôkre, said, "The Kayapó are still warriors and we will always be defenders of the forests."

Indigenous Expose Racism and Genocide at U.N. -- Governments Rush to Deny Abuses and Insult Presenters

Rachana Sam At on behalf of the Asia Indigenous Peoples Caucus points out that Indigenous Peoples can not participate in this process unless approved by a non-governmental organization, and this must change for there to be enhanced participation. Photo AIPC.

Indigenous Expose Racism and Genocide at U.N. -- Governments Rush to Deny Abuses and Insult Presenters

By Brenda Norrell, Censored News, July 14, 2024

GENEVA -- Indigenous youths spoke with courage and eloquence, calling out the environmental racism and genocide carried out by governments around the world. In response, government representatives rushed to deny the human rights abuses, and in some cases, used insulting language to criticize Indigenous Peoples who exposed their abuses, during the U.N. Expert Mechanism on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.

The representative of France denied the government is responsible for genocide in New Caledonia. Azerbaijan denied responsibility for genocide in Armenia and used derogatory accusations, describing speakers as frauds and part of a "smear campaign." 

The United States government failed to describe the ongoing seizure of Native ancestral lands for lithium and copper mines, and fake green energy projects targeting ceremonial places.

The Russian Federation government criticized speakers on Thursday. Responding to speakers statements, he said their status needs to be examined. He claimed some had lost touch with their communities, and some were funded by former colonial powers. He also said one organization presenting a statement was not recognized in Russia.

"We need to exclude the participation of chauvinists and racists," the Russian Federation government representative said.

Indigenous Women: Land Defenders, Water Carriers, Life Givers, Assert Rights at United Nations

Indigenous in Chile battling transnational companies told the U.N. that the environmental impact statements are paid for by the companies who become the judge and jury of the outcome.
Screenshot by Censored News

Krystal Brant, Mohawk, Ontario Native Women's Association speaking at U.N.

Indigenous Women: Land Defenders, Water Carriers, Life Givers, Assert Rights at United Nations

By Brenda Norrell, Censored News, July 11, 2024

Updated July 13, 2024

GENEVA -- Indigenous women spoke of their ancestral languages woven into their  relationship with the land, and as caretakers of biodiversity, from the deserts of the Sahara to Canada and the Amazon.

Speaking out against oppression and genocide from Armenia and Vietnam to the Americas, where they are celebrated as "folklore," while being violently oppressed, Indigenous women urged new measures to ensure justice for land defenders, murdered and missing Indigenous women, and increased efforts to protect medicine plants from exploitation, during the United Nations Expert Mechanism on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.

Statement of Family of Jacob Johns on Shooting

Jacob Johns photo courtesy family

Statement from Family of Indigenous Activist, Jacob Johns, Shot Last Week at Peaceful Prayer Circle

Contact:
Sabrina Chapa Sabrina@tiestolatierra.org

Anthony Diaz Anthony@newarkwatercoalition.org

https://therednation.org/statement-from-family-of-indigenous-activist-jacob-johns-on-shooting/

For generations, Indigenous Peoples have faced harm, death, and systemic oppression. Last week’s premeditated shooting is just another historical event in a series of systemic injustices in Indigenous history. This intentional premeditated act of violence was perpetrated against a peaceful prayer camp located at the proposed site for the reinstallation of the Oñate statue. This draws attention to the lengthy history of injustices against Indigenous Peoples by dehumanizing systems and divisive ideologies the community was protesting.

Defending Sacred Places and Sacred Rights at the United Nations

Deskaheh Steve Jacobs https://twitter.com/i/status/1680910453554159616

Defending Sacred Places and Sacred Rights at the United Nations

By Brenda Norrell, Censored News, July 22, 2023

Breaking news, article in progress

GENEVA -- Deskaheh Steve Jacobs provided the opening prayer but said he will not address the United  Nations until the Haudenosaunee is recognized as a government. Jacob's prayer began the United Nations Expert Mechanism on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples this week in Geneva, with weeklong global testimony focused on militarization, protecting the sacred, and violations of human rights.

Earlier this week, the City of Geneva installed 30 large double-sided photo panels along Lake Geneva telling the story of Deskaheh's journey and the development of relations between the City of Geneva and Indigenous Peoples worldwide.

Deskaheh – Levi General, is considered the first Indigenous Person to have raised the issue of loss of autonomy and dispossession of First Nations – Indigenous peoples by colonizing states at the international level. https://www.indiantime.net/story/2023/07/20/news/haudenosaunee-delegation-in-geneva-for-100th-anniversary-of-deskahehs-arrival/42727.html

"In 1923 Deskaheh, Chief of the Iroquois League, representing the Six Nations of the Iroquois Confederacy, leaves Canada to go on a mission to Geneva, Switzerland. He hopes to attend the League of Nations (now the United Nations) in order to have it recognize the sovereignty of the Iroquois.

WASHINGTON: Greater Chaco Protectors Rally Congress for Environmental Justice

Greater Chaco Advocates Travel from New Mexico to call on Congress for environmental justice for Greater Chaco

D.C. Premiere of Our Story: The Indigenous-Led Fight to Protect Greater Chaco

Delegation Statement

Censored News

Translated into French for Censored News

by Christine Prat

https://chrisp.lautre.net/wpblog/?p=7561

WASHINGTON, D.C. -- A delegation of Indigenous community leaders and Greater Chaco protectors traveled from New Mexico to Washington D.C. to lobby members of Congress for Greater Chaco protections, and premiere a film screening of the award-winning Our Story: The Indigenous Led Fight to Protect Greater Chaco (film trailer) which showcases the threats the Greater Chaco Landscape and its communities face from continued oil and gas leasing and drilling.

Greenwashing -- Biden, Haaland and the Navajo Nation's Runaway Train: Oil, Gas, Coal and Lithium

 

Ha ‘Kamwe is a hot spring sacred to the Hualapai Tribe in Northern Arizona. An Australian company is threatening the spring with a proposed lithium mining project.

The Green Hoax -- Biden, Haaland and the Navajo Government's Runaway Train: Oil, Gas, Coal and Lithium

Brenda Norrell

Censored News 

While President Biden and Interior Sec. Deb Haaland push for more oil and gas wells and fracking in the Greater Chaco region -- the Navajo Government's "Navajo Transitional Energy Company" is pushing coal mines, and now plans to join an Australian company to devastate the sacred land of the Hualapai with lithium mining. 

Lithium, in demand for electric vehicle batteries, is part of the fake green solutions to climate change.

Flying under the banner of energy transition, the Biden administration and Navajo Nation are pushing the most polluting and devastating drilling and mining on earth.

The Climate Trace map revealed at the U.N. Climate Summit in Egypt shows the San Juan, N.M., oil and gas fields, and Navajo power plants and coal mines, are among those polluting the world's air, emitting greenhouse gases causing global warming, and poisoning the air and causing respiratory illnesses.

The Navajo government's energy transition team is operating four coal mines and a power plant, and invested in a Texas company mining rare earth minerals.

Indigenous Protest at UN Climate Summit: Natives Protesting Biden have Credentials Removed

The actions of powerful Indigenous women at COP27, led by Ponca and Anishinaabe, under the heavy oppression of Egypt. Indigenous grandmothers and leaders held a water ceremony and marched through COP27 in Egypt calling for respect and protection of water and lands.

Photo and video courtesy Adrien Salazar on Twitter. Listen to the prayer song.

https://twitter.com/i/status/1591346128817004544 

Four activists, Natives and youths from the U.S., have credentials removed after a war cry, and holding up a banner, during Biden's talk at COP27

PARIS, FRANCE -- International Day of Solidarity with Indigenous Peoples Oct. 16, 2022

Now in Paris. Photo courtesy CSIA

Kathy Peltier, Dine' and Lakota, youngest daughter of imprisoned Leonard Peltier is in Paris speaking
to supporters who are urging a release for Peltier.

Free Peltier action underway in Europe

Tribute to the prisoners of 530 years of resistance in the Americas (Leonard Peltier – Dakota Sioux / Anishinaabe, prisoners of Eloxochitlán de Flores Magon and Miguel Peralta - Mazateco, Fidencio Aldama – Yaqui, Mapuche prisoners of Wallmapu - Chile / Argentina) 

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PARIS, FRANCE -- International Day of Solidarity with Indigenous Peoples Oct. 16, 2022

By CSIA Nitassinan
Censored News
https://www.csia-nitassinan.org/spip.php?article1239

As part of the celebrations of the 15th anniversary of the adoption of the Declaration of the Rights of Indigenous Peoples by the United Nations and the First Year of the UNESCO International Decade of Native Languages (2022 - 2032) CSIA is hosting the International Day of Solidarity with Indigenous Peoples of the Americas Program on October 16, 2022.

Legacies in Film: Zapatistas and Dineh Bennie Klain Inspiring Generations

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Marcos in Comandantes

Legacies in Film: Zapatistas and Dineh Bennie Klain Inspiring Generations

By Brenda Norrell

Censored News

Subcomandante Marcos tells the story of "why we walk, and "why we die to live." Dineh filmmaker Bennie Klain's films exposed racism and gave voice to the survivors of both uranium mining and John Wayne at Monument Valley.

“We have nothing and that is what causes the movement of our resistance,” says Subcomandante Marcos, in “Caminantes." The documentary tells the story of Indigenous people walking to their homes, villages, and fields.