More than 100 water protectors arrested in Minnesota in mass civil disobedience
Minneapolis, June 8 (RHC)-- In the U.S. state of Minnesota, over 100 water protectors were arrested Monday in the largest act of civil disobedience to date aimed at halting the Enbridge Line 3 pipeline.
If completed, Line 3 would carry more than 750,000 barrels of Canadian tar sands oil a day through Indigenous land and fragile ecosystems, endangering lakes, rivers and wild rice beds. The day of action began when over 1,000 water protectors blockaded a pipeline pump station north of the town of Park Rapids.
Many of the activists locked themselves together or to heavy machinery, including bulldozers and diggers. One of the protesters told reporters: "I’m a mother of three children. I trooped out here from Boston. I’m a Mi’kmaq woman andnd I’m here because they need backup. They need voices. There’s strength in numbers, you know? And I’m going to say it over and over and over again: All the kids out here deserve the future that we, as parents, promised our kids. And if this is how I have to fulfill that promise, then this is how I’m going to fulfill that promise, and not just for my kids, but for every kid sitting out here in this world.”
Protesters in Minnesota are demanding that U.S. President Joe Biden to shut down the pipeline.