SOMBA K'E/YELLOWKNIFE
A Yellowknife environmental activist says he will plead not guilty to four offenses after he was charged in September at the ongoing pipeline protest in Standing Rock, N.D.
Daniel T'seleie talks to the crowd at the Top Knight on Nov. 12 at the Denendeh against the Dakota Access Pipeline fundraiser. T'seleie says he will plead not guilty to charges laid against him when he was at the pipeline protest in North Dakota in September. - John McFadden/NNSL photo |
Daniel T'seleie, 34, is to appear in court in Mandan, N.D., a suburb of Bismarck, on Dec. 5 for a preliminary hearing. He said he was charged with felony reckless endangerment, along with three misdemeanors - obstruction, trespassing and disorderly conduct.
T'seleie was arrested and charged in September after he joined the protest at Standing Rock, where for months demonstrators have been trying to stop the construction of the Dakota Access Pipeline across traditional Standing Rock Sioux territory.
Leaders of the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe have said the oil pipeline and its construction threatens the tribe's way of life, their water, people and their land. They also say the pipeline would damage and destroy sites of great historic, religious and cultural significance.
T'seleie, who has a law degree from the University of Victoria, said he has a court appointed lawyer. He said despite his law background he will rely on the American lawyer to guide him through the U.S. legal process.
T'seleie said he has not formulated his defence strategy as of yet because he and his lawyer are still waiting for their copy of the evidence from police and the district attorney against him. He added there is funding available to him from a legal defence fund that was established for protesters who have been arrested at the site. He said he already traveled to Mandan for court last month but the preliminary hearing was pushed back.
"A friend of mine down there has been raising money and seeking out money to help with travel costs associated with our legal defence. He assured me that he can find funding and that I should not base my legal defence on how much it would cost to travel," T'seleie said. "All told, it's going to be at least three trips down there."
T'seleie added it costs about $1,250 for a round-trip ticket to Bismarck.
He said he fully expects to return to the protest site when he returns to North Dakota and spend at least a few days there, adding he is shocked at the latest level of violence used against protesters.
"It's disgusting. The people who are there have been doing this work peacefully and have been doing that since the resistance started last spring," T'seleie said. "The escalation has always been on the part of the police. They have been getting more insidious. They have things like flood lights all night, planes and helicopters flying over all day and night. More infiltration by agent provocateurs. The water protectors are not just being criminalized, they are being violently assaulted."
T'seleie said concussion grenades are now being shot at people, rubber bullets have struck people in the head and others are being sprayed with water in sub-zero temperatures.
"We should care about people and when people have been facing violent colonization for hundreds of years that continues to this day we should care about that," T'seleie said. "We should do whatever we can to support them. The future of the planet is at stake here."
T'seleie is one of several people from the NWT who have travelled to the protest site over the past couple of months.
One protester, a woman from New York City, reportedly may lose her arm after she was wounded by a concussion grenade.
The local sheriff in Standing Rock has defended the department's use of force, saying that fire hoses and concussion grenades were needed to control what he called a very aggressive crowd.
