Families Gather For Justice In Seattle
On May 15, the families of missing and murdered Indigenous people and their supporters gathered in Seattle from around the North West for a day of prayer and action for “Justice for MMIP families.”
Indigenous Activism
Help Three Native American Women Save Their Hospital
When Donna Gilbert asked me to be a part of her lawsuit, I immediately said yes. After having survived three other lawsuits, I should have been leery. But when peoples’ lives are at stake, it is not hard to make a hard decision.
Initially it was the Oglala Sioux Tribal Court (OST). It was my son’s idea to go to the Tribal Court because we knew what the outcome would be. The OST court would dismiss our case because the Great Plains Tribal Chairmen’s Health Board (GPTCHB) was under the jurisdiction of the state of South Dakota and was not a Tribal Organization. But we needed this verified by a court. We also knew that the other federal courts would acknowledge the Tribal court ruling, or were supposed to. It would be a win for the OST Court and for the patients who use Sioux San Hospital. As it turned out, the federal District Court and the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals both ignored and disregarded the OST court ruling.
Cycle Tour Exposes Adani’s Destruction Of Country
Australia - More than 100 people embarked on the “Tour de Carmichael”, a 105-kilometre cycle for Country through sacred Wangan and Jagalingou land to Adani’s coal mine site in the Galilee Basin in early May. They reached the mine site on May 7.
The four-day action was led by Wangan and Jagalingou man, Coedie MacAvoy, son of Uncle Adrian Burragubba.
“It's distressing to see the change in landscape. We don’t know what damage the mine will do to our sacred Doongmabulla Springs. That's why we're here — to expose Adani's destruction of Country,” MacAvoy said.
The tour had previously stopped at a number of significant sites to the Wangan and Jagalingou people, and camped at “Dalgayu Dina”, the site on Adani’s pastoral lease where McAvoy and others have built a coroboree ground and campsite.
Colombia: Violent Repression Of Anti-Government Protests
Residents of Bogota and Medellin continued to report brutal police repression of anti-government protests while Colombia’s third largest city Cali retook the streets on Saturday.
The massive turnout followed days of terror that left 10 people dead since Wednesday, the first day of a national strike against a tax reform proposed by the government of President Ivan Duque.
The terrorizing of the local population diminished drastically after local human rights organizations accused Defense Minister Diego Molano of playing a key role in the alleged state terror campaign on Friday.
Indigenous authorities from the nearby Cauca department sent indigenous to the city to provide protection against the Cali Police Department, the local mafia, and the security forces sent from Bogota.
All We Have Now Is The People Versus The Pipelines
The northern portion of the Keystone XL Pipeline is stopped for now, but there is another pipeline, Enbridge's Line 3, that will also carry tar sands from Canada under construction. Resistance to the pipeline is widespread and escalating with direct actions to shut down construction and solidarity actions. Clearing the FOG speaks with Dawn Goodwin, co-founder of the RISE Coalition, about the history of the pipeline, the harm it will cause, and how people can take action to stop it.
Facebooking While Brown
Page, Arizona – Loren Reed, a 26-year-old Diné (Navajo) man, is set for trial on May 4, 2021 for a trumped-up federal charge of “Threats to Damage and Destroy a Building by Means of Fire” after he engaged in a heated debate over Black Lives Matter protest tactics[1] in a private Facebook chat group created to organize a local police brutality protest. Reed has been held in federal pretrial detention without bail for ten months after a prior high school acquaintance reported him to the police for a different satirical social media post about planning a protest or ‘riot’ at the courthouse that never actually happened. An undercover FBI agent then infiltrated the private chat group, and monitored numerous messages exchanged by Reed and his friends.
Indigenous Group Launches Campaign Against New Voting Bills
An advocacy group for Native Americans is putting up billboards in various states to oppose measures that it says would increase voting restrictions.
The campaign launched by the Global Indigenous Council comes as more state legislatures are considering voting laws like the one in Georgia that sparked corporate backlash.
Tom Rodgers, president of the Global Indigenous Council and an enrolled Blackfeet tribal member, said the goal of the campaign is to draw attention to bills that would limit the number of available polling stations and ballot drop-off spots, calling the measures especially harmful to Native Americans who may not have access to the remaining voting locations.