Tag: protest

3 days of resistance to World Bank/IMF feature hundreds of activists, mobile DJ booth, bike blockade, and more.

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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE | October 12, 2022

Washington, DC, October 12 – Beginning today and through Friday, a global coalition of activists will demonstrate at the World Bank and International Monetary Fund annual meetings to demand that these institutions end their investment in fossil fuels, cancel the debt they claim Global South countries owe, and pay climate reparations.

Three days of resistance to World Bank/IMF feature hundreds of activists, mobile DJ booth, bike blockade, and more.

WHAT: Over 400 activists from around the world are planning three days of demonstrations with large-scale props and amplified sound, including a bike blockade, a mock trial, educational events, and a massive noise demonstration. On Friday, the week of action comes to an end with a festival of resistance envisioning the world we deserve, and a march featuring representations of international financial institutions in a literal bed with Big Oil. These demonstrations follow weeks of action by climate activists to remove World Bank president David Malpass, who refused to acknowledge climate change.

WHO: ShutDownDC, Arm in Arm For Climate (Washington, DC), The Big Shift Global, CODEPINK, Debt for Climate, Democratic Socialists of America International Committee, Extinction Rebellion (Washington, DC, Philadelphia, New York City), Glasgow Actions Team, GreenFaith, Justice is Global, Public Citizen’s Global Trade Watch, others.

WHEN:

  • Wednesday, October 12, 5:00 PM, Edward R. Murrow Park (H St. and 18th St. NW): Bike blockade of the G20 dinner featuring 100 cyclists and a mobile DJ booth
  • 8:00 PM, Murrow Park: Teach-in: “How neoliberalism conquered the world and how the world is fighting back”
  • Thursday, October 13, 10:00 AM – noon, Murrow Park (rain location: George Washington University, Rome Hall Room 204, 801 22nd St. NW, Washington, DC 20052): Mock trial of the IMF and World Bank
  • 1:00 PM, Murrow Park: Soccer-themed noise demonstration outside the G20 press conference
  • Friday, October 14, 8:00 AM – 11:00 AM, Murrow Park: Festival of Resistance celebrating and welcoming the world we want to live in
  • Noon, Murrow Park: The Big Shift Global march – featuring international financial institutions in a literal bed with Big Oil – and rally calling on the IMF and World Bank to stop funding fossil fuel projects.

 

Detailed schedule available at https://www.forpeopleforplanet.earth/calendar/

WHY: The week of October 10th, the World Bank and IMF are holding their annual meetings in Washington, DC.* Drawing on decades of resistance to these institutions and following the leadership of organizations and individuals representing this global fight, activists are demanding that they cancel all debt, pay climate and colonial reparations to countries in the Global South, and stop funding fossil fuel projects.

The people making decisions at the IMF and World Bank meetings have historically chosen to advance colonialism, contribute to climate change, and make it harder for everyday people to survive events like natural disasters and pandemics. At this year’s meetings, they will continue to prioritize extractive energy markets over Indigenous sovereignty and climate justice, and profits for transnational corporations over the economic futures of countries in Africa, Asia, Latin America, the Caribbean, and the Pacific.

The decisions made at these meetings will most directly affect those who have contributed the least to the climate catastrophe and yet are the most indebted to the IMF and World Bank – like the tens of millions of people displaced last month as a result of flooding in Pakistan. The creative direct actions occurring this week are a powerful tool allowing activists to uplift the experiences and demands of our neighbors in the Global South.

HOW: For press inquiries please contact Basav Sen with ShutDownDC at media@shutdowndc.org or 513-262-2750.

*Washington DC is unceded territory of the Piscataway Conoy people. Learn more about The Cedarville Band of Piscataways and paying land tax, their collective choice for reparations here: CBPI, Inc. | Instagram, YouTube | Linktree

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#ShutDownDC is an organizing space where individuals and groups can come together to organize direct action in the fight for justice.

Victory! Court Rules MN Sheriff’s Blockade of Line 3 Water Protector Camp Was Illegal and Bars Ongoing Efforts to Obstruct Access+

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cross-posted from Center for Protest Law and Litigation

Today, a Minnesota court issued a ruling protecting an Indigenous-led camp of Line 3 opponents from Hubbard County’s unlawful blockades and targeted harassment. This victory on the part of steadfast frontline climate justice activists is part of the crucial legal fight-back against oppressive police tactics as they place their bodies on the line to defend the planet.

The ruling comes after months of litigation on behalf of Indigenous water protectors, including Tara Houska and Winona LaDuke, and a successful temporary restraining order against Hubbard County, Sheriff Cory Aukes, and the local land commissioner in northern Minnesota for unlawfully blocking access to Giniw Collective’s Line 3 Camp Namewag in 2021.

The Center for Protest Law and Litigation, EarthRights International, and local counsel Jason Steck represent the plaintiffs.

Mara Verheyden-Hilliard, constitutional rights lawyer and Director of the Center for Protest Law & Litigation at the Partnership for Civil Justice Fund stated:

“Today David beat Goliath in a legal victory for people protecting the climate from rapacious corporate destruction. The outrageous blockade and repression of an Indigenous-led water protector camp was fueled by massive sums of money flowing from the Enbridge corporation to the Sheriff’s department as it acted against water protectors challenging Enbridge’s destruction of Native lands.”

“Today’s decision finds that the paramilitarized blockade was illegal and orders the Sheriff and Hubbard County to desist from any ongoing effort to obstruct access. This has been a hard-fought case as Hubbard County and its Sheriff have perpetuated the history of efforts to deprive Native people of access to land. Today’s victory sends a message to the next police force that might consider similar tactics that activists will not back down and will fight to assert their rights.”

Plaintiff Tara Houska, Founder of the Giniw Collective, stated:

“15 months ago, I was woken up at 6am and walked down my driveway to a grinning sheriff holding a notice to vacate my years-long home. That day turned into 50 squad cars on a dirt road and a riot line blocking my driveway. 12 people, guests from all over who came to protect the rivers and wild rice from Line 3 tar sands, were arrested and thrown into the dirt.”

“Today’s ruling is a testament to the lengths Hubbard County was willing to go to criminalize and harass Native women, land defenders, and anyone associated with us — spending unknown amounts of taxpayer dollars and countless hours trying to convince the court that the driveway to Namewag camp wasn’t a driveway,” Houska continued. “It’s also a testament to steadfast commitment to resisting oppression. This is a piece in the long game and we aren’t afraid. We haven’t forgotten the harms to us and the harms to the earth. Onward.”

Plaintiff Winona LaDuke, Co-Founder and Executive Director of Honor the Earth, stated:

“We are grateful to Judge Austad for recognizing how Hubbard County exceeded its authority and violated our rights. Today’s ruling shows that Hubbard County cannot repress Native people for the benefit of Enbridge by circumventing the law. This is also an important victory for all people of the North reinforcing that a repressive police force should not be able to stop you from accessing your land upon which you hunt or live.”

Marco Simons, General Counsel of EarthRights, stated: 

“The court’s ruling is a major rebuke to police efforts to unlawfully target water protectors and to interfere with their activities protesting the Line 3 pipeline. Blocking access to the Namewag camp exemplifies a pattern of unlawful and discriminatory police conduct incentivized by an Enbridge-funded account from which the police can seek reimbursement for Line 3-related activities.

“Police forces should protect the public interest, not private companies. Cases like this highlight the dangers of allowing the police to act as a private security arm for pipeline companies.”

Read the opinion here. 

BACKGROUND

The Hubbard County Sheriff unlawfully blockaded access to a camp serving as a convergence space and home for Indigenous-led organizing, decolonization and treaty rights trainings, and religious activities by water protectors seeking to defend the untouched wetlands and the treaty territory of Anishinaabe peoples. Activists attempting to access the property were harassed by Hubbard County police, issued unlawful citations for driving upon the property’s driveway, and threatened with arrest for coming to and from the camp.

The Sheriffs’ departments in the region received funds from the Enbridge pipeline corporation for their time spent acting against the pipeline’s opponents through a “Public Safety Escrow Fund.” Enbridge paid more than $8 million to “reimburse” law enforcement, effectively privatizing Minnesota’s public police forces in service to efforts to repress opposition to the pipeline.

Enbridge’s Line 3 tar sands oil pipeline runs through hundreds of miles of Northern Minnesota land, including the lands of the Anishinaabe people and the headwaters of the Mississippi River. Enbridge is already responsible for the largest inland oil spill in the United States.

THE PLAINTIFFS

Tara Houska is an environmental and Indigenous rights attorney and advocate, land defender, founder of the Giniw Collective and a leader of the efforts to  stop Line 3. She is a citizen of Couchiching First Nation.

Winona LaDuke is a renowned activist working on issues of sustainable development, renewable energy, and food systems. She is the co-founder and executive  director of Honor the Earth. She lives and works on the White Earth reservation in northern Minnesota, and is a member of the Mississippi Band Anishinaabeg.

NorCal: Urgent Call for Statewide Support for Threatened Coastal Forests & Tribal Sovereignty

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cross-posted from Save Jackson Forest

Urgent Call for Statewide Support for Threatened Coastal Forests & Tribal Sovereignty

Please join The Coalition to Save Jackson at a  “30×30” Kick Off Rally on September 28th, 2022! The rally begins at 11 am, outside of the California Natural Resources Agency’s 30×30 Kick Off Event at 715 P St, Sacramento, CA 95814.

Our Coalition is supporting the Coyote Valley Band of Pomo Indians as they negotiate co-management of the Jackson Demonstration State Forest (JDSF) in their Pomo homelands. Establishing co-management and ending commercial logging in Jackson, the largest state-owned forest, are necessary if California is to enact the goals of reconciliation with Tribal people and reach its 30×30 goal of preserving lands to slow climate change. Governor Newsom established the 30×30 goal of protecting 30% of the state’s lands and waters by 2030. Scientists have advocated a similar global goal, in the face of accelerating climate change and declines in global biodiversity.

Supporting this campaign has statewide impacts because the Coyote Valley Band of Pomo Indians is negotiating with the State based on Governor Newsom’s little-publicized directive to state agencies to co-manage lands with the Tribes of California. What happens in Pomo Homelands can affect Tribal co-management in all of California. Please join us!

Tribal Chairman Michael Hunter said “For co-management to succeed, it must be a government to government relationship that creates equal decision making powers. I worry that the State does not understand the importance of the words they are using. We must ensure that co-management creates an equal relationship between the State and the Tribes with equal decision making authority.” At the rally we are going to amplify Tribal Elder Priscilla Hunter’s call for “No More Broken Promises” because, after halting logging, road building, and pesticide operations for seven months during negotiations with the Tribe, CalFire and CNRA are attempting to resume these operations before negotiations with the Tribe are complete.

The Tribe and Coalition protest that the State is desecrating Pomo and Coast Yuki Sacred Sites and cultural resources with their logging operations in JDSF. Furthermore, the State is squandering one of its best tools for fighting climate change by logging mature coast redwoods. “Redwood forests have amazing climate mitigation potential and management needs to maximize that potential,” said Sara Rose, a youth activist with Mendocino County Youth for Climate and member of the Coalition. “My generation will have to live with what the planet becomes if we don’t save it. We have to face the reality of climate change.”

Please join us in Sacramento, please share this call for support, and please send us your organization’s  logo if you support the Coyote Valley Band of Pomo Indians and the Coalition to Save Jackson in this campaign. If your organization can write a letter supporting our campaign, thank you. Please click here to sign a petition to shame CAL FIRE’s deception and protest logging in Jackson Demonstration State Forest! For more on this campaign read this background info, check out Savejackson.org, follow @savejacksoncoalition on Instagram, and like Coalition to Save Jackson The People’s Forest on Facebook!

Logos, questions and RSVPs can be emailed to Showing Up for Racial Justice Mendo Coast chapter, a member of the Coalition to Save Jackson: surjmendocoast@gmail.com

You can register for the State’s 30×30 event for free here if you would like to go inside the event and make your presence known.  Our rally will be outside the event.

 

Oregon:Community Members Stop Post-Fire Logging Operations in Protest on Hwy. 126

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photo via Cascadia Forest Defenders

For Immediate Release

Contacts:

Clover, Community Member, Cascadia Forest Defenders, 541-357-6531 cascadiaforestdefenders@protonmail.com

In midst of state-wide controversy around grievous mismanagement of hazard tree removal, community members put their bodies in the way to halt operation.

MCKENZIE BRIDGE, OR – Monday morning, community members occupied log decks along Highway 126, stopping active post-fire logging operations for an hour. The action comes amidst growing controversy over the Oregon Department of Transportation’s (ODOT) mismanagement of the hazard tree removal.

For months now, concerns have been mounting about ODOT falsely marking and over-logging healthy, living trees and standing dead trees that pose no public risk along the scenic route and across the state. Recently, during a Senate hearing those fears were confirmed by expert whistleblowers (source link). However, the excessive cutting has not been stopped, despite calls from prominent state Senators. Within the fire boundary along Highway 126, piles of timber including old growth can be seen, directly next to living trees marked with blue paint to be logged.

Troubled by the scene, four community members entered the site where a helicopter was yarding logs hoping to halt the work, in an act of nonviolent direct action. Two of them got on the already decked logs, while one person put themself in the mouth of the log loader. Waving at the helicopter that was actively moving a log, they attempted to catch the attention of the pilot in order to safely stop the yarding process. The helicopter stopped yarding and hovered, empty, for a period of time. However, supervisor Joel Zeni from Suulutaaq allowed the helicopter to continue working on the same site.

At this point, the loggers were unable to continue work. In response to the work pausing, employees from Mason, Bruce & Girard [MBG] told the community members that their actions caused thousands of dollars in profits lost for the logging corporation.

As two community members continued to occupy the log decks, two more followed to where the helicopter was then working. Despite this, Joel Zeni from Suulutaaq, Inc allowed the helicopter to continue yarding logs on the occupied worksite.

Clover, a community member, said:

“By labeling post-fire logging as ‘hazard tree removal,’ ODOT contractors are using the fires from last summer as an excuse to make record profits under the guise of community safety and at the expense of taxpayers. Now is the time for all of us to take a role in protecting what’s left by stopping this irresponsible and destructive logging.”

Jesse, a community member, said:

“We have nothing against the individual workers doing their jobs; we want ODOT, MBG and Suulutaaq, the Forest Service and the Bureau of Land Management to stop exploiting this disaster by ending all post-fire logging. We urge others to join us.”

Lane County sheriffs and state patrol were called to the scene. Once work had been stopped for an hour and the demands were made clear, the community members left the site peacefully.

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