The 2016 protests against the Dakota Access pipeline galvanized the youth from Standing Rock Indian Reservation and the surrounding Native communities to protect their land and their water.
The response of the states (North Dakota, Iowa) and the private security firms hired by the pipeline company was brutal and unrelenting, going so far as to use attack dogs against the protesters. Some 800 activists were charged with misdemeanors and felonies. Arrested protesters were strip-searched and held in cages.
In 2019, Energy Transfer Partners sued Greenpeace USA, Earth First, and BankTrack, claiming that the organizations misled the public, but a federal judge in North Dakota dismissed the lawsuit.
Now Energy Transfer Partners is at it again. On February 24, this year, a new trial began. Energy Transfer Partners is suing Greenpeace for $300 million, claiming that the organization orchestrated the Standing Rock Protests in 2016.
Read Winona LaDuke’s report.
