UN Observers Monitoring Abuses Against Standing Rock Water Protectors

[G_j]

http://www.commondreams.org/news/2016/11/01/un-observers-monitoring-abuses-against-standing-rock-water-protectors

Pipeline owners warned that they are 'complicit' in police brutality against Indigenous demonstrators

byLauren McCauley, staff writer

The increasingly violent attacks by North Dakota police and private security forces against peaceful, Indigenous water protectors have caught the nation's attention as well as that of the United Nations, an arm of which has begun an investigation into the protesters' claims of human rights abuses, including "excessive force, unlawful arrests, and mistreatment in jail," the Guardian reported late Monday.

Observers have begun collecting testimonies from those protesting the Dakota Access Pipeline and, on Monday, Grand Chief Edward John, a Native American member of the U.N. permanent forum on Indigenous issues, met with police officials in Mandan, North Dakota and visited the cages where some of the 141 arrested protesters were held after last week's military-style police raid.

Those detained at the Morton County Correctional Center said that while they were held in the 10-by-14-foot cages they were forced to wait for basic necessities, such as "access to bathrooms, food, water, and medical attention," the Guardian reported.

"We embarked upon a peaceful and prayerful campaign," Standing Rock Sioux member Phyllis Young told the U.N. representatives. "They were placed in cages. They had numbers written on their arms very much like concentration camps." Young said that the police's treatment of native people was "not only conditions of colonialism, but conditions of war."

"The government is allowing the police force to be used as a military force to protect an oil company," added protester Kandi Mossett, a member of the Mandan, Hidatsa, and Arikara nation.

..more..

[raging moderate]

1. The whole world is watching.

Thank you, United Nations observers.

[ciaobaby]

2. Thank you for posting.

This is becoming an American Tragedy. So very sad our government is busy trying to find a way to appease the oil companies. So disturbing the MSM does not find this new worthy. For all the talk about our climate and how we need to convert to other forms of power, we still look the other way when the hard decisions need to be made.
My heart breaks for the brave Native Americans who continue to make a stand.
I hope the U.N. can make a difference. The USA may not be watching, but the World is.

[JRLeft]

3. The influence of big money interests is given for moments like this one.

They are buying the silence of our politicians.

[JRLeft]

4. The sad thing is Native Americans are supposed to have jurisdiction over their land

but they're not powerful enough so not enough people care it's a gawd damn disgrace.