UN Monitoring Abuses Against Standing Rock Protectors

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UN observers monitoring abusive treatment of Standing Rock protestors.

Eléctrica in the Desert

Indigenous water protectors face off with police during last week’s military-style raid. (Photo: Wes Enzinna/cc/flickr)

BY Lauren McCauley, Common Dreams

The increasingly violent attacks by North Dakota police and private security forces against peaceful, Indigenous water protectors have caught the nation’s attention as well as that of the United Nations, an arm of which has begun an investigation into the protesters’ claims of human rights abuses, including “excessive force, unlawful arrests, and mistreatment in jail,” the Guardianreported late Monday.

Observers have begun collecting testimonies from those protesting the Dakota Access Pipeline and, on Monday, Grand Chief Edward John, a Native American member of the U.N. permanent forum on Indigenous issues, met with police officials in Mandan, North Dakota and visited the cages where some of the 141 arrested protesters were held after last week’s military-style police raid.

Those detained at the Morton County Correctional Center…

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