Man locks himself to construction equipment to stop the construction of the Dakota Access Pipeline near the Standing Rock Indian Reservation in North Dakota. Photo: Desiree Kane/Wikimedia Commons. Some rights reserved.
Through the relentless stream of rush-hour pedestrian gridlock, it was difficult to distinguish between protestor, spectator, tourist and commuter on a recent Tuesday in Grand Central Train Station in New York City. However, within minutes, any ambiguity between demonstrator and observer quickly thawed with the clarion call of “Mic check!” by the apparent organiser of the demonstration. Hand-in-hand, the group of 30 responded with a resounding “Mic check!” and the 3rd consecutive day of the New York City solidarity protest against the Dakota Access Pipeline in North Dakota(DAPL) had begun.
While the DAPL demonstrations in New York and across the United States have attracted the attention of other allied groups, national media, police and government officials, the locus of the movement, and the site of the polices’ most violent crackdown, is thousands of miles away on the rural plains of the Standing Rock Sioux Indian reservation in North Dakota. The frequency and intensity of the protests, and attendant violent crackdown, are a stark reminder of the US Government’s fundamental failure to develop a nation-wide independent human rights body to provide impartial and timely support for communities subject to human rights violations.
