protest Archives - Page 3 of 5

Round dancing and burning tires on Hwy 11 as anti-fracking resistance refuses surrender

Late Monday evening, after the tires were set on fire, a group of anti-fracking demonstrators round danced against a backdrop of flames in the middle of a New Brunswick highway while they waited for the RCMP to respond.

The tires were set alight in the late afternoon around the same time a New Brunswick court judge in the provincial capital of Fredericton granted an extension to an injunction against the demonstrators for 14 more days.

(A round dance by flaming tires on Hwy 11. Photo courtesy of Candi Simon)

An increasing drumbeat of eye-witness reports from the area late Monday evening indicated that the RCMP was ramping up its numbers in preparations to move on the blockade.

There was also a report from an eye-witness that a total of three fires had been lit on Hwy 11 in the same vicinity.

SWN Resources Canada, a Houston-based energy firm, asked for the injunction arguing weather and protests had slowed down the last phase of its shale gas exploration work. Its previous injunction was set to expire at midnight.

The flaming tires on Hwy 11 followed a day of heated confrontation near Richibucto, NB, where SWN Resources Canada had been trying to continue its exploration work for shale gas deposits.

Richibucto is about 83 kilometres north of Moncton and sits at the place where the Richibucto River flows into Richibucto Harbour which links to Northumberland Strait.

Videos from the scene showed lines of RCMP officers pushing groups of demonstrators off the highway. The RCMP officers would shout “move” as they tried to force the demonstrators into the ditches.

“Move to the side now,” one of the RCMP orders in one of the videos only to be met by jeers and shouts from the demonstrators.

It’s unclear how many people were arrested during the day. APTN National News has been able to confirm at least five arrests from eye-witness accounts.

(RCMP arrest a man on Hwy 11 earlier in the day Monday. Photo courtesy of David Goodswimmer)

Two young Mi’kmaq men were arrested during the afternoon.

Judd Poulette and his friend, who goes by the aka “Soda Pop,” said they were taken to the Shediac RCMP detachment.

Poulette said RCMP officers stomped on his knuckles and they swelled to the point paramedics had to visit the holding cell to drain them.

“They were stomping me while I got arrested for walking an elder on the side of the road,” said Poulette, after his release.

The J-Division RCMP media relations officer did not return repeated phone calls and emails seeking comment and confirmation of the day’s events.

While RCMP units from other provinces, including Saskatchewan and Quebec, are in New Brunswick to bolster the police presence there, J-Division continues to command the ongoing operation.

APTN National News has relied on videos, photographs and eye-witness testimony to piece together the day’s events.

As of this article’s posting, the anti-fracking demonstrators were attempting to maintain a permanent blockade of Hwy 11.

“This is a permanent blockade, everybody is sick and tired of this,” said one Elsipogtog First Nation resident from the scene.

The Mi’kmaq from Elsipogtog have been leading the fight against SWN for months and their strength has been bolstered by supporters from the Acadian and Anglophone communities in the region.

The current blockade is about 18 km northeast of Elsipogtog.

Several Acadians have been arrested over the past few days in relation to the ongoing demonstrations.

APTN National News contacted one of the demonstrators involved in the blockade who said the tires where set on fire in response to RCMP tactics and the incident involving the truck and three women demonstrators.

The RCMP had managed to surround the demonstrators on the highway several times.

“They got some of our people blocked in a little ways so we’re gonna block them,” said one of the demonstrators, an Elsipogtog community member.

One of the trucks involved with SWN’s exploration work bumped into three women on the highway, according to two eye-witnesses.

SWN has also been using contractors during its exploration work.

The witnesses said the demonstrators tried to stop a white truck which was driving at a low speed on the highway. The witnesses said the truck sped up and hit one woman. A second woman ran over to the truck and was also bumped. While a man began yelling at the driver, the truck bumped into a third woman.

The witnesses said two of the women were taken to hospital with bruises. The incident did not cause any life-threatening injuries.

“And all through this the (driver) was smiling away,” said one witness. “The cops were right there and they said they didn’t see anything.”

The incident created a firestorm on social media which was compounded by a hit and run in Montreal at a protest in support of Elsipogtog’s battle with SWN. There, a small SUV plowed through a group of demonstrators with one man clinging to the hood of the vehicle for several metres before falling to the street.

The day also saw several banner drops in Montreal, Toronto and Hamilton in support of Elsipogtog, along with an hour-long blockade at the federal Vancouver port terminal and protests in Halifax and Ottawa.

SWN has faced ferocious opposition to its exploration for months.

Elsipogtog residents fear the discovery of shale gas will lead to hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, and pose a threat to the area’s water.

Their concerns are also shared by non-First Nation people from the surrounding communities who have been supporting their demonstrations and the various camps set up to counter SWN’s exploration work.

Heavily-armed RCMP tactical units raided an anti-fracking camp on Oct. 17 that was blocking SWN’s exploration vehicles in a compound in Rexton, NB. About 40 people were arrested after a day of violent confrontation between Elsipogtog residents and the RCMP.

The RCMP said officers seized three rifles, ammunition and crude explosives from the campsite. The police also freed SWN’s vehicles.

Premier David Alward has signaled he wants to see the protests broken, calling the current conflict on Hwy 11 a “beachhead” that could determine the fate of other energy projects slated to hit the province.

TransCanada is planning to build a pipeline to Saint John, NB, that would carry Alberta mined bitumen to an expanded terminal owned by Irving Oil. Irving Oil executives have been quoted in news reporters saying shale gas would provide a cheap source of energy for the firm to process the additional bitumen coming from Alberta.

Irving Oil is owned by the Irving family which also owns JD Irving Ltd. JD Irving owns Industrial Security Ltd. which provides security for SWN.

Irving Oil and JD Irving are independent companies, run separately.

Large Rally Planned in Minneapolis to Protest Washington NFL Team Thursday

All people are encouraged to attend. Everyone is encouraged to bring their hand drums.

By Levi Rickert, Native News Today

MINNEAPOLIS – The AIM Twin Cities, the Minneapolis-based chapter of the American Indian Movement, is holding a rally to continue to draw attention to the protest of the Washington NFL team’s continued use of the name that is offensive to most American Indians.

The rally is planned during the Minnesota Vikings and Washington team’s game on Thursday November 7. The rally will begin at 5:00 pm. Participants are asked to meet at the American Indian Center at 1530 East Franklin Avenue, Minneapolis, Minnesota.

Participants will march from the American Indian Center to Mall of America Field and hold a rally against the Washington Football team, protesting team owner Dan Snyder’s refusal to change the team name and mascot, which is a racial slur and stereotype that is offensive to American Indians.

AIM Twin Cities calls on all those who support a mascot and name change for the Washington Football team to join together to encourage Dan Snyder to

“Retire the racist attire! Recognize that American Indians are a living people, not mascots for America’s fun and games!”

All people are encouraged to attend.

Rally organizers stated in a news release:

“Using American Indian slurs like the ‘R-word’ is no different than the use of Black Sambo which offended African Americans or the Frito Bandito which is offensive to the Hispanic community.”

“The continued use of American Indian likenesses and images by sports teams has resulted in widespread racial, cultural and spiritual stereotyping which promotes hatred and disrespect of American Indian people,”

the news release continues.

Drum groups are invited to bring their big drums. Everyone is encouraged to bring their hand drums.

First Nations to resume blockade in Canadian fracking fight

Renewed protests follow announcement that energy company will re-start shale gas exploration

A Royal Proclamation day feast brought out over 300 to the anti-fracking blockade in Rexton, New Brunswick in early October. [Photo: Miles Howe]

By Sarah Lazare, November 5, 2013. Source: Common Dreams

Elsipogtog First Nations members are heading back to the streets in New Brunswick this week to defend their land from a gas drilling company seeking to re-start exploratory fracking operations in the region.

The new wave of local anti-drilling resistance will resume an ongoing battle between the community members who faced a paramilitary-style onslaught by police last month that sparked international outcry and a wave of solidarity protests.

“This is an issue of human rights and access to clean drinking water, and it’s fundamentally about sovereignty and self-determination.” –Clayton Thomas-Muller, Idle No More

The renewed protest follows a recent announcement by New Brunswick’s premiere that SWN Resources Canada, a subsidiary of the Houston-based Southwestern Energy Company, will resume shale gas exploration in First Nations territory after it was halted by blockades and protests.

Elsipogtog members announced Monday they will join with local residents and other First Nations communities—including the Mi’kmaq people—to “light a sacred fire” and stage a protest to stop SWN from fracking.

“SWN is violating our treaty rights. We are here to save our water and land, and to protect our animals and people. There will be no fracking at all,” said Louis Jerome, a Mi’kmaq sun dancer, in a statement. “We are putting a sacred fire here, and it must be respected. We are still here, and we’re not backing down.”

“The people of Elsipogtog along with local people have a very strong resolve and will be there as long as they need to be to keep the threat of fracking from destroying their water,” said Clayton Thomas-Muller, a campaigner with Idle No More, in an interview with Common Dreams.

Community members previously blocked a road near the town of Rexton in rural New Brunswick to stop energy companies from conducting shale gas exploration on their land without their consent.

In early October, the government imposed a temporary injunction on the New Brunswick protest, bowing to pressure from SWN.

Claiming the authority of the injunction, over 100 Royal Canadian Mounted Police launched a paramilitary-style assault on the blockade in late October, bringing rifles and attack dogs and arresting 40 people.

First Nations communities and activists across Canada and the world launched a wave of actions in solidarity in response to the attack.

“Within 24 hours of the paramilitary assault on the nonviolent blockade by the fed police, Idle No More and other networks organized over 100 solidarity actions in over half a dozen countries,” said Thomas-Muller.

Days later, a Canadian judge overruled the injunction on the protests. Yet the federal and provincial governments continue to allow SWN to move forward fracking plans on indigenous lands, in what First Nation campaigners say is a violation of federal laws protecting the sovereignty of their communities.

“This is an issue of human rights and access to clean drinking water, and it’s fundamentally about sovereignty and self-determination,” said Thomas-Muller. “Support for the Elsipogtog and their actions to reclaim lands in their territory is something that is powerful and united from coast to coast and around the world.”

Monsanto’s absurdity reaches new heights

By Jim Hightower, 3 November 2013, Climate Connection

It was my privilege to go to Des Moines recently for a World Food Prize extravaganza recognizing Monsanto’s work against global hunger. But wait, Monsanto is not a hunger-fighter. It’s a predatory proliferator of proprietary and genetically engineered seeds.

That’s why I wasn’t actually attending the ceremony to bestow a false halo on the corporate giant. Rather, I was one of more than 500 scruffy “outsiders” in the city’s First United Methodist Church to protest the Monsanto absurdity.

There, real-life Iowa farmers spoke plainly about the countless abuses they have endured at the hands of the genetic manipulator.

One pointed out that if the corporation genuinely gave even one damn about hunger, it could’ve used its immense lobbying clout in Washington this year to stop Congress from stripping the entire food stamp program from the Farm Bill. Instead, Monsanto didn’t lift a finger to help fend off hunger in our own country.“It doesn’t care at all about feeding the world,” the Iowa farmer said with disgust. “It cares about profits, period.”

Indeed, Monsanto is a pitch-perfect example of what Pope Francis was referencing in May, when he declared: “Widespread corruption and selfish fiscal evasion have taken on worldwide dimensions. The will to power and of possession has become limitless. Concealed behind this attitude is a rejection of ethics.”

How ironic, then, that Monsanto bought this year’s World Food Prize for itself, just to masquerade as a world hunger fighter, hoping to persuade the Vatican to bless its demonic effort to force the world’s poor farmers to buy and become dependent on its patented seeds.

The World Food Prize Foundation says it recognizes contributions for “agriculture.” But Monsanto has zero to do with agri-culture. It’s the agri-business face of the unethical, selfish, corruption that the Pope warned about.

AIM and Idle No More to Protest at Redskins-Broncos Game Sunday

Source: Indian Country Today Media Network

Two Denver-based groups are set to protest against the Washington Redskins refusal to change its name and mascot.

Members of the American Indian Movement and Idle No More in Colorado will call on the football team to change its name at the Broncos-Redskins game on Sunday.

Protestors at Lambeau Field in Green Bay last month. (Associated Press)

Members of the group say that the name is “racist” and “an insult to all indigenous peoples.” They are also telling all Colorado news and sports journalists to banish the so-called ‘R’ word from their reporting; asking that local press such as The Denver Post and NBC’s KUSA to call them “the team from Washington, D.C.”

Both groups say that most American Indians consider the word to have a long racist history in the U.S.

Most recently, about 20 members from various Native American tribes protested outside Lambeau Field at the team’s game against the Green Bay Packers.

In a news release, the group invited “all people of goodwill” to protest at the football game. Protestors will gather at Sports Authority Field at Mile High in Denver. No location or time information has been announced.

Route 134 camp cleared, burned-out cruisers moved if RCMP grounds surveillance flights: Elsipogtog War Chief

UPDATE: Elsipogtog Chief Aaron Sock moved burnt-out trucks Sunday night with two friends, a shovel and a local tow-truck company. War Chief John Levi says still wants RCMP to ground surveillance flights to move camp to Hwy 116 site. Mi’kmaq Warrior Society spokeswoman Suzanne Patles says group needs mandate to continue participating if camp moves.

By Jorge Barrera, APTN National News
ELSIPOGTOG FIRST NATION–The remaining encampment along Route 134 that was the scene of a heavily-armed raid Thursday will be dismantled if the RCMP grounds its surveillance aircraft, said Elsipogtog’s War Chief John Levi.

Levi said stopping the surveillance flights would be an act of good faith and allow people in the community to heal.

Levi said he spoke with RCMP officers Sunday who also wanted free passage to remove the burned-out shells of their vehicles torched during Thursday’s raid.

“I told them, get rid of that plane. We are trying to heal and you are still there poking us with a stick,” said Levi. “They are not willing to call off the plane and I told them I am not backing them up on cleaning up their mess. It works both ways, when you negotiate something, you get something.”

He said he came away frustrated from the meeting, but hoped to convince the police to do the right thing Monday.

“Let our people heal, don’t agitate any more, it is so simple,” said Levi. “Yet they can’t even do that.”

New Brunswick RCMP could not be reached for comment.

Levi is the war chief specifically for Elsipogtog and is not connected to the Mi’kmaq Warrior Society which was in charge of security at the encampment at the time of the RCMP raid by camouflaged tactical units.

Levi was a prominent spokesperson for Elsipogtog’s anti-fracking movement throughout this past summer.

Levi said there are plans to move the encampment and light a sacred fire in an open area used during the summer. The area, which was once the nerve centre of the region’s anti-fracking movement, sits just off Hwy 116 which runs through Elsipogtog First Nation’s territory.

“We are planning on going to the 116 where the sacred fire was before and do our healing there and get ready for the next round,” said Levi.

Levi said there is no longer any point to the Route 134 encampment after the raid freed the exploration trucks it was blocking.

“There is no sense to being on the side of the road, it’s only a danger for our people,” said Levi.

Many of the Warrior Society’s core members were among the 40 arrested during the raid. At least two involved in its leadership are still in custody. The RCMP also seized three hunting rifles, ammunition, knives and crude improvised explosive devices.

The encampment is less than a kilometre away from a high school.

“For the safety of the students there, we don’t want anything to escalate here anymore,” said Levi.

Levi said he’s never advocated the use of weapons or violence.

“I told my supporters, let’s kill them with kindness. The only weapons we carry are drums, sweetgrass and sage,” said Levi.

A community meeting was held in Elsipogtog Sunday afternoon to discuss the trauma experienced by community members as a result of the raid.

Levi said the community hall would remain open 24-7 throughout the week for people who need counselling as a result of the events.

“We have to help our people heal,” said Levi, in an interview with APTN National News by the burned out police cruisers as the RCMP’s surveillance plane circled overhead.

Elsipogtog Chief Aaron Sock also asked the community to allow RCMP members to return to the detachment on the reserve, said Willi Nolan, from Elsipogtog.

“There is great disappointment, there is mistrust of (the RCMP by) the people,” said Nolan.

Nolan said Thursday’s raid, which triggered widespread chaos and clashes between police and demonstrators, left many people shaken.

“The community suffered terrible trauma. We saw our elders, youth and women being injured, being hurt by the police because a corporation wants to poison everything,” she said. “They saw what the law does.”

But there was another sentiment just beneath the pain, said Nolan.

“It was also celebratory. One elder said, ‘we are winning,’” she said. “Even though it doesn’t feel like it now, it feels like we are all traumatized, but he said we are winning and I want to believe him.”

The encampment along Route 134 continued to hum with life late Sunday evening as volunteers split and piled fire wood while others sat around fires chatting and smoking cigarettes. In one area, a group of warriors were called into a circle and told that their job was not to instigate, but to keep the peace.

There was an air that this could all continue indefinitely, even as they opened the road back to two lanes of traffic. The day before, over 100 Mi’kmaqs and their supporters marched from the site and for about an hour blocked Hwy 11, which passes over Route 134.

Some people, who did not want to be named, criticized the meeting held earlier in the day. One long-time supporter said he thought the meeting was going to map out the next steps in the protest and came away disappointed. He said he planned to dig in for the long haul.

Assembly of Manitoba Grand Chief Derek Nepinak visited the site late Saturday night and attended the meeting Sunday after participating in a ceremony on the community’s Sundance grounds with Sock. The two exchanged gifts and smoked a peace pipe.

Nepinak said he suspected there was collusion between the RCMP and Houston-based SWN Resources Canada, which had its vehicles trapped by the encampment. SWN is conducting shale gas exploration in the region. Shale gas is extracted through fracking, a controversial method many believe poses a threat to the environment.

“How is it that during this process that the company was able to come in untouched and remove their equipment?” said Nepinak. “There was obviously a degree of collusion.”

Tense Standoff at Elsipogtog Blockade, Molotovs Thrown

Source: Earth First! Newswire

[Canada] A tense stand off is ongoing between 200 RCMP, Mi’kmaq blockaders, and about 200 supporters. According to the Stimulato r, the chief and tribal council personally blockaded gas company trucks behind barricades. Protesters have hurled rocks and a corporate news tripod at the RCMP. At the moment, RCMP are making mass arrests, SWN vehicles appear to be rolling out of the compound, and six RCMP vehicles have been set ablaze.

Molotov cocktails were thrown from the woods earlier this morning in defense of the land and peoples. The RCMP, some with long rifles, entered the woods. Shots were fired, and screaming was heard. There is an unconfirmed report that activist Steven Gould has been shot. (UPDATE: We are now receiving reports that less-than-lethal rounds have been fired at supporters, as well as tear gas. Pepper spray has been deployed against supporters attempting to get through police lines. The RCMP is currently unloading riot gear.)

Supporters broke through police lines to join the Mi’kmaq (video her e). The RCMP have erected a barrier on one side of the blockade, and appear to have the blockade surrounded. More people are coming to support with food and water.

Solidarity blockades have sprung up elsewhere in the Mi’kmaq territory. There are solidarity actions planned at the Canadian Consulate in NYC at 5pm and the Canadian Embassy in DC, as well as Vancouver and Winnipeg.

As of time of writing, arrests have been made, and there is at least one report of police brutality against Mi’kmaq warrior Suzanne Patles, an Ilnu woman and member of the Mi’kmaq Warrior Society. (UPDATE: It appears that mass arrests are currently being made.)

According to the New Brunswick, Anglophone North School District, the RCMP did not notify them of the raid as is legally required. Schools are currently on lock-down.

The Mi’kmaq are blockading Highway 132 near Rexton to halt the activity on the compound belonging to a gas company, SWN Resources Canada. SWN Resources has been illegally trying to frack the land of the Elsipogtog for months, and the tribe has been joined by other tribes of the Mi’kmaq and Wabanaki Confederacy peoples in attempts to take direct action against the gas company.

According to Ellen Gabriel of the Kanien’kehá:ka Nation, “Forcible removal of Mi’kmaq on their traditional lands, [is] an illegal act by Police who should not enforce.”

Last week, a Canadian judge issued an injunction against the blockade, but the Elsipogtog have sought peaceful negotiation. Today’s raid must be seen as a preemptive action to prevent the October 18 day of action from taking place, which was called by the Mi’kmaq Warriors Society for physical support of the SWN blockade.

The demands of the Warriors Society are the following:

Produce all Bills of Sales, Sold, Ceded, Granted and Extinguished Lands for New Brunswick.
Produce documents proving Cabot’s Doctrine of Discovery.
Produce the Treaty of Peace and Friendship 1686.
Produce Treaty of Fort Howe 1768.
Produce consents for Loyalists to land in Nova Scotia/New Brunswick.
Produce records of Townships created and consents by Chiefs to allow this.
Produce agreements or consents by all New Brunswick Chiefs who agreed to Confereration of 1867.
Produce evidence of consents to The Indian Act by all Native Tribes.
Produce records of Trust Funds.
Produce agreements for 4% of all mineral shares of finished products in Canada, except coal.
Produce all correspondence letters pertaining to Numbered Treaties (Promises).
Produce all documents creating border divisions, that divide the Wabanaki confederacy.
Produce the Orders from the Lords of Trade to the Governor of the Colonies.

Protesters Uproot 9/11 Memorial, Cite Native Issues

source: middbeat.org, Rachel KoganProtesters removing commemorative 9/11 flags from the Middlebury campus lawn. — source: middbeat.org, Rachel Kogan
Protesters removing commemorative 9/11 flags from the Middlebury campus lawn.

Source: Indian Country Today Media Network, September 12, 2013

Yesterday afternoon, on the 12th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, a group of five protesters disrupted a memorial to the nearly-3,000 killed in order to draw attention to historical injustices done to Native Americans.

The incident occurred on the campus of Middlebury College, in Middlebury, Vermont. As has become a tradition at the school, a group of students from the school’s College Democrats and Republicans commemorated the loss by planting 2,977 flags, one for each victim of the attacks, on the lawn in front of the school’s Mead Memorial Chapel. Just before 3 PM, five individuals began pulling the flags out of the ground and putting them into garbage bags.

When questioned by students, protesters said they were acting on behalf of the Abenaki people, according to Middlebury campus student blog middbeat.org.

Later, one of the five people, and the only one who is a Middlebury student, stepped forward to explain the action. Anna Shireman Grabowski issued a written statement that reads, in part:

My intention was not to cause pain but to visibilize the necessity of honoring all human life and to help a friend heal from the violence of genocide that she carries with her on a daily basis as an indigenous person. While the American flags on the Middlebury hillside symbolize to some the loss of innocent lives in New York, to others they represent centuries of bloody conquest and mass murder. As a settler on stolen land, I do not have the luxury of grieving without an eye to power. Three thousand flags is a lot, but the campus is not big enough to hold a marker for every life sacrificed in the history of American conquest and colonialism.

Shireman Grabowski, who is not Native, went on to concede that this was “not a productive way to start a dialogue about American imperialism” and that she is grappling with her “complicity in the overwhelming legacy of settler colonialism.” You can read her full statement at middbeat.org.

The friend to which Shireman Grabowski referred was Amanda Lickers, Onondaga, who was on campus for a workshop on settler responsibility and decolonization. “Lands where our dead may lay must not be desecrated,” Lickers said, according to a release from Indigenous Action. “In my community, we do not pierce the earth. It disturbs the spirits there, it is important for me to respect their presence.”

“For over 500 years our people have been under attack,” Lickers continued. “The theft of our territories, the devastation of our waters; the poisoning of our people through the poisoning of our lands; the theft of our people from our families; the rape of our children; the murder of our women; the sterilization of our communities; the abuse of generations; the uprooting of our ancestors and the occupation of our sacred sites; the silencing of our songs; the erasure of our languages and memories of our traditions. I have had enough.”

Middlebury president Ron Liebowitz issued a statement condemning the action and stating that a disciplinary investigation is underway. “There is always something to learn from differences of opinion,” he wrote. “In this case, the disrespectful methods of the protesters overshadowed anything that might have been learned from the convictions they claimed to promote.”

Redskins to face protests at Lambeau during Packers home opener

Rick WoodAaron Rodgers tries to cross the goal line in the Packers’ October 2010 road game loss against the Washington Redskins. — Rick Wood
Aaron Rodgers tries to cross the goal line in the Packers’ October 2010 road game loss against the Washington Redskins.

By Meg Jones, Journal Sentinel

When the Green Bay Packers take the field at Lambeau on Sunday for their home opener, they won’t be the only ones taking aim at the Washington Redskins.

Packers fans walking in to Lambeau Field through the Oneida Nation Gate will see Oneida members and others protesting the use of the Redskins logo and mascot, which they say is offensive to Native Americans.

“The warrior image is not the image we want to be portrayed,” said Brandon Stevens, an Oneida Nation elected official. “We’ve moved past the time of Western encroachment and how the West was won, and that’s where all the images are taken from — when we were a valiant enemy.”

Members of the Wisconsin Indian Education Association’s Mascot and Logo Task Force are expected to gather outside Lambeau Field before the noon game holding signs protesting the Washington Redskins’ choice of mascot. The group also has scheduled a seminar on the topic on Friday at the University of Wisconsin-Green Bay.

The Packers declined to comment on the mascot issue. The protesters contacted the team to ask permission to hold signs outside the stadium, and the Packers will set up an area where they’ll be allowed to protest.

“We respect that reasonable people may have differing views,” National Football League spokesman Brian McCarthy said Tuesday in an email. “The name from its origin was always intended to be positive and has always been used by the team in a highly respectful manner.”

A Washington Redskins spokesman did not immediately return a message seeking comment.

It’s not just the Oneida Nation in Green Bay pressing the Redskins to change their mascot. The Oneida tribe in upstate New York already has publicly called on the NFL team to get rid of the name.

In a radio ad that began airing Monday before the Redskins season opener, a member of the New York Oneida tribe called on NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell to “stand up to bigotry” by denouncing “the racial slur” in the team’s name.

Redskins owner Dan Snyder has said he’ll never change his team’s name.

For more than two decades the Oneida tribe in Wisconsin has opposed the use of Indian characters and names in insensitive ways including sports teams, Oneida Nation spokeswoman Bobbi Webster said. When the Redskins last visited Lambeau, in October 2007, Oneida members held signs at the stadium saying they were not mascots, Webster said.

The topic is timely given the standoff between the Mukwonago School District and the state Department of Public Instruction over the school’s use of the Indian logo and mascot. The state’s deadline for Mukwonago to drop its Indian mascot passed last month. The School Board in July voted to take no action to change the nickname and logo, despite the possibility of daily fines for not complying with the state order.

On Sunday the protest group plans to provide information to Packers fans lining up to get inside the stadium, raising awareness of sports mascots and logos that are derogatory to Native Americans. Webster said it’s not an official protest by the Oneida Nation, which is a major sponsor of the Packers and has the naming rights to the entrance on Lambeau Field’s east side.

Stevens, a member of the tribe’s business committee, said Native Americans are no longer simply fierce warriors.

“We’re educators, we’re community members, we have families and go to work like everyone else,” Stevens said. “Having those negative stereotypes takes us back 100 years.”

AIM-WEST to Protest Baseball Game Against Cleveland Team Friday

Native News Network

OAKLAND, CALIFORNIA – American Indian Movement West, better known as AIM-WEST, is asking for a support of solidarity to demonstrate at the Oakland Coliseum when the Oakland A’s play the Cleveland baseball team beginning on Friday, August 16 at 7 pm pdt.

AIM-WEST calls for congressional hearings on racism in sports

The purpose for the rally is to demonstrate to the public that the American Indian communities are sick and tired of these discriminatory logos and negative images that serves to demean and disrespect a peoples, a culture, and deeply negatively impacting American Indian youth.

All drummers and dancers welcome, youth, elders, and the general public to come stand in solidarity with Indigenous nations of this Western Hemisphere for their right to dignity and respect.

AIM-WEST will announce a national campaign to launch a petition drive demanding the National Football League (NFL), and the Major League Baseball (MLB) to retire, remove, and or replace these racist images and slurs that are in violation of Indigenous peoples human rights. AIM-WEST calls for congressional hearings on racism in sports, and the removal by legislation of discriminatory logos that depict a people in a negative manner.

The UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, adopted in September 2007 by the General Assembly, specifically states in Article #8:

Indigenous peoples and individuals have the right not to be subjected to forced assimilation or destruction of their culture.
States shall provide effective mechanisms for prevention of, and redress for:
- Any action which has the aim or effect of depriving them of their integrity as distinct peoples, or of their cultural values or ethnic identities;
- Any action which has the aim or effect of depriving them of their integrity as distinct peoples, or of their cultural values or ethnic identities;
- Any form of forced population transfer which has the aim or effect of violation or undermining any of tier rights;
- Any form of forced assimilation or integration;
- Any form of propaganda designed to promote or incite racial or ethnic discrimination directed against them.