Indigenous water defenders and their allies on Tuesday celebrated a Minnesota court ruling protecting a Line 3 protest camp from illegal government repression.
Hubbard County District Judge Jana Austad issued a ruling shielding the Indigenous-led Giniw Collective’s Camp Namewag — where opponents organize resistance to Enbridge’s Line 3 tar sands pipeline — from local law enforcement’s unlawful blockades and harassment.
The ruling follows months of litigation on behalf of Indigenous water protectors, whose legal team last year secured a temporary restraining order issued by Austad against Hubbard County, Sheriff Cory Aukes, and the local land commissioner for illegally blocking access to Camp Namewag.
“Today David beat Goliath in a legal victory for people protecting the climate from rapacious corporate destruction,” Mara Verheyden-Hilliard, director of the Center for Protest Law & Litigation at the Partnership for Civil Justice Fund, said in a statement.
VICTORY! Court Rules MN Sheriff’s Blockade of #Line3 Water Protector Camp Was Illegal and Bars Ongoing Efforts to Obstruct Access @zhaabowekwe @GiniwCollective @WinonaLaduke @EarthRightsIntl https://t.co/nmNVHMkwwb pic.twitter.com/pL15xAGyRV
— Center for Protest Law & Litigation ⚖️ (@ProtestLaw) September 13, 2022
“The outrageous blockade and repression of an Indigenous-led water protector camp were 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,” she added.
Indigenous activist and Giniw Collective founder Tara Houska, who is a plaintiff in the case, said that “15 months ago, I was woken up at 6:00 am and walked down my driveway to a grinning sheriff holding a notice to vacate my yearslong home.”
“That day turned into 50 squad cars on a dirt road and a riot line blocking my driveway,” she recalled. “Twelve 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.”
Remember when Hubbard County blocked our camp’s driveway and started ticketing people while relentlessly surveilling and harassing us? The court ruled what they did was illegal.
Miigwech @ProtestLaw for the long haul ✊🏽❤️ #StopLine3 #FuckEnbridge #SurveillanceState pic.twitter.com/HIRVAV6GWo
— giniw collective (@GiniwCollective) September 13, 2022
Houska continued:
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. 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.
Winona LaDuke, co-founder and executive director of Honor the Earth and a former Green Party vice presidential candidate, stated that “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,” she added. “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.”
BREAKING: LINE 3 CASE WIN. In a major victory, a Minnesota judge ruled that police violated rights of water protectors when they blocked the driveway to a resistance camp last year. https://t.co/dyPcOWcJUe @ProtestLaw @zhaabowekwe @WinonaLaduke
— EarthRights Intl (@EarthRightsIntl) September 13, 2022
EarthRights general counsel Marco Simons asserted that “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,” he continued.
“Police forces should protect the public interest, not private companies,” Simons added. “Cases like this highlight the dangers of allowing the police to act as a private security arm for pipeline companies.”
Truthout Is Preparing to Meet Trump’s Agenda With Resistance at Every Turn
Dear Truthout Community,
If you feel rage, despondency, confusion and deep fear today, you are not alone. We’re feeling it too. We are heartsick. Facing down Trump’s fascist agenda, we are desperately worried about the most vulnerable people among us, including our loved ones and everyone in the Truthout community, and our minds are racing a million miles a minute to try to map out all that needs to be done.
We must give ourselves space to grieve and feel our fear, feel our rage, and keep in the forefront of our mind the stark truth that millions of real human lives are on the line. And simultaneously, we’ve got to get to work, take stock of our resources, and prepare to throw ourselves full force into the movement.
Journalism is a linchpin of that movement. Even as we are reeling, we’re summoning up all the energy we can to face down what’s coming, because we know that one of the sharpest weapons against fascism is publishing the truth.
There are many terrifying planks to the Trump agenda, and we plan to devote ourselves to reporting thoroughly on each one and, crucially, covering the movements resisting them. We also recognize that Trump is a dire threat to journalism itself, and that we must take this seriously from the outset.
Last week, the four of us sat down to have some hard but necessary conversations about Truthout under a Trump presidency. How would we defend our publication from an avalanche of far right lawsuits that seek to bankrupt us? How would we keep our reporters safe if they need to cover outbreaks of political violence, or if they are targeted by authorities? How will we urgently produce the practical analysis, tools and movement coverage that you need right now — breaking through our normal routines to meet a terrifying moment in ways that best serve you?
It will be a tough, scary four years to produce social justice-driven journalism. We need to deliver news, strategy, liberatory ideas, tools and movement-sparking solutions with a force that we never have had to before. And at the same time, we desperately need to protect our ability to do so.
We know this is such a painful moment and donations may understandably be the last thing on your mind. But we must ask for your support, which is needed in a new and urgent way.
We promise we will kick into an even higher gear to give you truthful news that cuts against the disinformation and vitriol and hate and violence. We promise to publish analyses that will serve the needs of the movements we all rely on to survive the next four years, and even build for the future. We promise to be responsive, to recognize you as members of our community with a vital stake and voice in this work.
Please dig deep if you can, but a donation of any amount will be a truly meaningful and tangible action in this cataclysmic historical moment.
We’re with you. Let’s do all we can to move forward together.
With love, rage, and solidarity,
Maya, Negin, Saima, and Ziggy