December 4, 2013
Colonial Thugs Target Indigenous Women to Provoke Me
As the reports pile up, it becomes more and more evident that our women,
sisters, mothers and grandmothers are being targeted and attacked by the
ruthless, corrupt agents of colonialism corporatism and imperialism.
Nothing has really changed since the days when they raped our women in
front of our men to destroy us. We are still here and they are still
using the same ole dirty tactics.
It is the same contempt for Mother Earth and All Our Relations. It is the
same fear of Nature that makes the pillagers and plunderers imagine they
can conquer Nature. And that they have every right and necessity to do
so. It's a sick and corrupt world view that drives the capitalist
economic system. It's based on a cruel hierarchy with few at the top and
many at the bottom scrambling to climb on top of each other. It is a
system that must be stopped dead in its tracks.
There is a better way and we Human Beings have the creativity and
imagination within us to find that way. It's not for one person to
dictate but for minds to come together and find solutions.
Our men are being provoked into reckless acts when it is a time for
careful planning and strategic acts.
Kittoh
http://aptn.ca/news/2013/12/
Elsipogtog woman says she suffered trauma, injuries at hands of RCMP
during arrest
03. Dec, 2013 by APTN National News
(Video shows Marie Simon’s arrest at about the 2:00 mark. Simon was
wearing a blue coat. She is seen on the ground behind the line of RCMP
officers. Video courtesy of Noel Jij)
By Jorge Barrera
APTN National News
Elsipogtog First Nation community member Marie Simon said she blacked out
in the back of the RCMP paddy wagon just before her epileptic seizure.
When she regained consciousness, Simon said she was lying on the highway
with RCMP officers around her. She said her hands were still bound with
zip-ties behind her back.
“They were saying, ‘are you sure she’s alright? Are you sure she had a
seizure?’” said Simon, in a telephone interview with APTN National News.
“When I was finally able to get my head together enough to talk I said
‘look, I am epileptic.”
Simon was one of seven people arrested Monday afternoon during
demonstrations against SWN Resources Canada’s controversial shale gas
exploration work on Hwy 11 in New Brunswick. The demonstrations shut down
the highway for several hours and fires were set alight in the late
afternoon.
Simon now has bruises on her face and her sprained left wrist is bandaged
and the swelling prevents her from fully opening her fingers. She also has
trouble keeping food down and believes it’s the result of a knee to the
stomach she received from an RCMP officer after she was arrested.
“It was traumatizing,” she said.
(Swelling apparent on Marie Simon’s face. Facebook photo courtesy of Marie
Simon)
Simon was arrested at about 1:30 p.m. local time as RCMP officers tried
push a group of demonstrators off Hwy 11.
Video from the incident shows RCMP officers surrounding a small group of
demonstrators. One of the officers shouts, “Move to the side now.”
One of the demonstrators responds, “who is pushing women? Cameras over here.”
Suddenly there is a brief scuffle as Simon is pulled through the line of
officers and pinned to the ground.
“The officer in front of me pushed me right on my chest. I said don’t
touch me that’s my chest, that’s my breast, and he went and did it again,”
said Simon. “He pulled me by my left hand…I was saying let me go, let me
go, let me go and he wouldn’t let me go. He pulled me through the line of
cops…he pulled me through and slammed me on the ground, face right on the
ground.”
Simon said she remembers having a knee pressed against her neck, another
pressed between her shoulder blades and a third dug into the bottom of her
back as officers bound her hands with zip-ties.
Then, she said she was hit again as she was being pulled up off the ground.
“I was crying, my hand was hurting, my neck was hurting, my stomach was
hurting, my ribs,” said Simon.
(Marie Simon’s bandage sprained left wrist and hand. Facebook photo
courtesy of Marie Simon)
But it was when she was sitting in the back of the paddy wagon that she
began to feel a seizure coming on. Simon said she hadn’t had a seizure for
about a year and suddenly she began to feel the familiar jolts in her
muscles.
“I told an officer and he just looked at me,” she said. “They shut the
door on me.”
Another man who had been arrested and was in the back of the wagon began
trying to calm her breathing down, said Simon.
“He was getting so mad saying, ‘she needs help, why aren’t you helping
her?’” said Simon. “That’s the last thing I remember and I woke up on the
highway, I was on the side of the road, a whole bunch of cops around me.”
Simon said paramedics were on the scene by then, but the RCMP officers
refused to free her hands so she could be put on the stretcher.
“They were hesitant,” she said.
They finally agreed to take of her zip-ties and cuff her hands in the
front so she could be taken to the hospital in nearby St. Anne, NB.
Simon said her blood pressure was extremely low and her sprained wrist was
bandaged. She was then taken to a holding cell at the Shediac, NB, RCMP
detachment, but they could only take fingerprints from her right hand
because she couldn’t fully extend the fingers on her left.
Simon said the officers would not let her call her fiance to tell him
where she was. She was only allowed to call legal aid and was advised not
to give any information to the police and was denied the pain killers
given to her by the doctor in St. Anne.
“I was sitting (in the cell) and wondering if this is where I am going to
stay. They told me they didn’t know if I was going to be released,” she
said. “I was looking at the toilet and wondering what I was supposed to do
and if I was going to see my family.”
She was eventually released at about 7:30 p.m. local time with conditions,
including staying at least one kilometre from SWN’s exploration vehicles.
Simon said she is now planning to file a complaint against the RCMP for
her treatment despite being told by an officer in the Richibucto RCMP
detachment that she needed the name of the officer who allegedly roughed
her up. Simon said the Shediac RCMP detachment told her they wouldn’t
accept the complaint and that she should file it in Richibucto.
Simon said she tried to demand the name of the officers during her arrest,
but none would give it to her and their name tags weren’t visible on their
uniforms.
Still, despite the misery, Simon would still march out onto the highway
again.
“I don’t regret it. If I didn’t have a police order not to be within a
kilometre of it, I would be there again on the front lines and I would
never regret it,” she said. “I am proud of who I am, where I come from. I
did this to defend our land, our water, our people, Aboriginal or not.”
jbarrera@aptn.ca
@JorgeBarrera
==========
http://aptn.ca/news/2013/12/
RCMP investigate complaint truck involved with SWN exploration work struck
three women
03. Dec, 2013 by APTN National News | 0 Comments
elsipogtogthismorning
(RCMP officers line up in front of SWN Resources Canada’s ‘thumper’ trucks
Monday. Photo courtesy of Angeline Purcell)
APTN National News
The New Brunswick RCMP is investigating allegations a pick-up truck
involved with SWN Resources Canada’s controversial shale gas exploration
work in New Brunswick struck three women on a highway during
demonstrations Monday.
RCMP Const. Damian Theriault said RCMP officers received a complaint from
the scene that the women had been hit by the truck.
“We received a complaint that a vehicle working in the area may have come
into contact with three people who were on the road,” said Theriault. “We
are investigating that complaint.”
Theriault said the incident did not cause any serious injuries.
Two eye-witnesses told APTN National News that demonstrators tried to stop
a white truck which was driving at a low speed on Hwy 11. 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 by ambulance to hospital
with bruises.
“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.”
Mi’kmaq-led demonstrations against SWN’s shale gas exploration work on
Monday shut down a section of Hwy 11 near Richibucto, NB, for “several
hours,” said Theriault. He said seven people were arrested during the day,
including five men and two women. All were released the same day with
conditions to stay at least one kilometre away from SWN’s exploration
vehicles.
Theriault said the highway was reopened by 3 a.m. local time.
Demonstrators lit tires on fire that were laid across the highway. As the
night progressed, two other fires were lit in the vicinity.
Theriault said the RCMP was also investigating the fires.
“They are under investigation and there could be charges down the road,”
he said.
SWN obtained a 14 day extension to its injunction against the
demonstrators Monday.
Theriault said the injunction also applies to journalists, who must also
stay 250 metres from the front and back of SWN’s exploration vehicles and
more than 20 m on either side.
APTN National News contacted two senior officials with SWN Resources
Canada seeking comment, but calls were not returned.
news@aptn.ca
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