Native Americans facing excessive force in North Dakota
pipeline protests – UN expert
GENEVA (15 November 2016) – A United Nations human rights
expert has accused US security forces of using excessive force against
protesters trying to stop an oil pipeline project which runs through land
sacred to indigenous people.
Law enforcement officials, private security firms and the
North Dakota National Guard have used unjustified force to deal with opponents
of the Dakota Access pipeline, according to Maina Kiai, the UN Special
Rapporteur on the rights to freedom of peaceful assembly and association.
Some of the 400 people held during the demonstrations had
suffered “inhuman and degrading conditions in detention,” Mr. Kiai added.
Protesters say they have faced rubber bullets, teargas,
mace, compression grenades and bean-bag rounds while expressing concerns over
environmental impact and trying to protect burial grounds and other sacred
sites of the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe.
“Tensions have escalated in the past two weeks, with
local security forces employing an increasingly militarized response to
protests and forcibly moving encampments located near the construction site,”
the rights expert said.
“This is a troubling response to people who are taking
action to protect natural resources and ancestral territory in the face of
profit-seeking activity,” he noted. “The excessive use of State security
apparatus to suppress protest against corporate activities that are alleged to
violate human rights is wrong and contrary to the UN Guiding Principles on
Business and Human Rights.”
“People feel that their concerns are being ignored, and
it is their right to stage peaceful assemblies so that these concerns can be
heard. The authorities have an obligation to actively protect that right. The
rights of cultural heritage defenders have to be respected and protected,” he
added.
The Special Rapporteur acknowledged reports that some
protests had turned violent, but emphasized that the response had to be
strictly proportionate and not affect peaceful protesters.
“The right to freedom of peaceful assembly is an
individual right, and it cannot be taken away indiscriminately or en masse due
to the violent actions of a few,” he said. “The use of violence by some
protesters should not be used as a justification to nullify the peaceful
assembly rights of everyone else.”
The Special Rapporteur said he was concerned at the scale
of arrests and the conditions in which people were being held: “Marking people
with numbers and detaining them in overcrowded cages, on the bare concrete
floor, without being provided with medical care, amounts to inhuman and
degrading treatment.”
Mr. Kiai also said an announcement on 8 November by
pipeline operator Energy Transfer LLC Corporation, stating that the final phase
of construction would start in two weeks, “willfully” ignored an earlier public
statement by federal agencies. “I call on the Pipeline Company to pause all
construction activity within 20 miles east and west of Lake Oahe,” he said.
Construction of the pipeline has continued despite a call
in September by the UN Special Rapporteur on the rights of indigenous peoples,
Victoria Tauli-Corpuz, and other experts for it to be halted.
The 1,172-mile (1,890km) pipeline, designed to carry
crude oil to a refinery near Chicago, is being built by Energy Transfer and the
US Army Corps of Engineers.
Protesters say several sacred sites of the Standing Rock
Sioux tribe have already been bulldozed, and construction work is nearing the
Missouri River, which is held sacred. In addition, protesters believe the
project poses a significant threat to the quality of the drinking water.
Mr. Kiai’s call has been endorsed by the Special
Rapporteur on indigenous peoples, Victoria Tauli-Corpuz; the Special Rapporteur
on cultural rights, Karima Bennoune; the Special Rapporteur on the issue of
human rights obligations relating to the enjoyment of a safe, clean, healthy
and sustainable environment, John Knox; the Special Rapporteur on the promotion
and protection of the right to freedom of opinion and expression, Michel Forst;
the Special Rapporteur on the human rights to safe drinking water and
sanitation, Léo Heller; and the current Chair of the UN Working Group on the
issue of human rights and transnational corporations and other business
enterprises, Pavel Sulyandziga.
(*) Read the expert’s statement: http://www.ohchr.org/en/NewsEvents/Pages/DisplayNews.aspx?NewsID=20570&LangID=E
ENDS
Mr. Maina Kiai (Kenya) took up his functions as the first
Special Rapporteur on the rights to freedom of peaceful assembly and of
association in May 2011. He is appointed in his personal capacity as an
independent expert by the UN Human Rights Council. As a Special Rapporteur, Mr.
Kiai is part of what is known as the Special Procedures of the Human Rights
Council. Special Procedures, the largest body of independent experts in the UN Human
Rights system, is the general name of the Council’s independent fact-finding
and monitoring mechanisms that address either specific country situations or
thematic issues in all parts of the world. Special Procedures’ experts work on
a voluntary basis; they are not UN staff and do not receive a salary for their
work. They are independent from any government or organization and serve in
their individual capacity. Learn more, log on to:
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http://www.ohchr.org/EN/countries/LACRegion/Pages/USIndex.aspx
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