At a Congressional hearing, an indigenous water protector denounced a coordinated attack on environmental activists by industry, politicians, and police.
By the Center For Constitutional Rights
Anne White Hat, a Sicangu Lakota Water Protector, today denounced the coordinated attack by oil and gas companies, lawmakers, and police on the Indigenous-led movement resisting fossil fuel extraction. Appearing before the House Subcommittee on Civil Rights and Civil Liberties, Anne White Hat detailed widespread collusion that has led to industry-authored laws and violent arrests of protesters.

A leader in the fight to stop construction of the Bayou Bridge pipeline across Louisiana, White Hat was arrested in September 2018 for allegedly violating the state’s so-called critical infrastructure law, one of several enacted around the country in recent years. She referred to such laws as “lawfare,” which she defined as “the weaponizing of the legislative process to attack social movements.” Lawfare, she says, emerges from a long history of attacks on Indigenous people as they fight to protect the land from those seeking to exploit it for profit.
“Violence has been used for centuries here and around the world against people who challenge the concentration and misuse of power,” she told the committee. “This is nothing new to us, but what we experienced needs to be recognized by all as the coordinated assault on a movement.”
Recent Posts
Visits Of Justice: Stella Assange’s Plea To Australia
May 29, 2023
Take Action Now “Julian is lying in his cell, probably awake and struggling to fall asleep. It’s where he spends twenty-two hours a day, every…
No Parade For Me: On Getting Memorial Day Wrong
May 29, 2023
Take Action Now The days has too often and for too many become an expression of faux patriotism that further exploits the sacrifices of the slain and…
What Can I Do To Prevent Nuclear War? You Can Shout ‘No’ Now!
May 28, 2023
Take Action Now We’ve done 31 War Abolition Walks in Madison since April 2022 to call for an end to the war in Ukraine, and all war. By Janet…
Henry Kissinger, War Criminal, Is Somehow Still Alive
May 27, 2023
Take Action Now Much of the world views Kissinger as a war criminal – yet in the US, surrounded by powerful friends, he is feted as a…