Tag Archive for 'court rulings'

28
Oct

Chagos Islanders Denied the Right of Return

The British House of Lords has overturned a 2007 high court ruling that allowed the original inhabitants of the Chagos Islands to return to their homes in the Indian Ocean archipelago.

“There are a lot of Chagossian people in front of the court today (Oct. 22) and we are very sad about this decision,” said Hengride Permel, of the Chagos Island Community Association.

“It was a chance for the British Government to right a wrong…it is a shameful day for the government.”

Examined in the documentary, Stealing a Nation, by John Pilger, the historical wrong Permel refers to was a repellent scheme by the British and American governments to “sweep” and “sanitize” the islands of all inhabitants to make way for a strategic US military base.

“At first, [in the late 1960s] the islanders were tricked and intimidated into leaving; those …

Published on
October 28, 2008
  0 Comments 240 views

25
Oct

Indigenous Man ‘Guilty’ for alleged role in Palm Island Uprising

In Australia, an all-white jury has found Aboriginal man Lex Wotton ‘guilty’ for his alleged role in the 2004 Palm Island uprising.

Sick of the commonplace racism and injustice, on November 26, 2004, an estimated 400 people, many of them youths, rose up after they learned that Cameron Doomadgee, now known as Mulrunji, sustained multiple injuries, akin to a plane crash, before dying alone in a jail cell. Mulrunji was arrested less than two hours earlier for being a ‘public nuisance’.

The group proceeded to set fire to the courthouse, police station and police barracks on the Island.

In total, 28 Indigenous People were arrested and charged with various offenses - the vast majority of whom were granted bail the following week. Lex Wotton, however, was singled out as being the single driving force behind the uprising.

Lex …

Published on
October 25, 2008
  2 Comments 398 views

02
Oct

Judge bars construction near Comanche sacred site

An Oklahoma federal district court has barred the construction of a military training facility near Medicine Bluffs, a site held sacred by the Comanche Nation

Following a temporary restraining order issued last August, U.S. District Judge Timothy D. DeGuisti has granted a preliminary injunction against the construction of a military training facility at Fort Sill, Oklahoma. The proposed construction is near Medicine Bluffs, a site held sacred by the 14,000-strong Comanche Nation.

In his ruling, dated Sept. 23, 2008, Judge DeGuisti said that the tribe adequately established the Medicine Bluffs as a scared site, while the Army failed to show how an alternate location for the facility would be restrictive to military interests, explains the Native Times.

DeGuisti states, “The practices engaged in by the Comanche people in this land area constitute the sincere exercise of religion as defined under the RFRA [Religious …

Published on
October 2, 2008
  0 Comments 381 views

22
Sep

Government rejects Indian Trust payout scheme

The US government is seeking to appeal the August Court ruling that awarded Indigenous plaintiffs $455 million in the 12-year-old Indian trust fund lawsuit.

The request comes just two weeks after the plaintiffs said they plan to appeal the same decision, because it was “profoundly disappointing and difficult to understand, in that it disregards unchallenged evidence of the record, law of the case, law of the D.C. Circuit since 1895, and settled law as set forth by the United States Supreme Court,” said lead plaintiff Elouise Cobell during an appearance on Democracy Now.

A far cry from the $47 billion of mismanaged trust money claimed in the case, U.S. District Judge James Robertson ruled on August 7 that the plaintiffs should only be entitled to “hundreds of millions.”

The government “contends [that] Robertson’s court does not have the jurisdiction …

Published on
September 22, 2008
  0 Comments 463 views

19
Sep

Police carry out suprise raids on corporate contaminators

The Matanza-Riachuelo river basin, the most polluted region in Argentina, is getting some desperately needed relief thanks to a landmark decision by the National Supreme Court of Justice.

On September 10th, a caravan of inspectors from Argentina’s National Environmental Authority, the SAYDS, accompanied by 100 national guardsman and a busload of federal and local police, carried out a surprise raid on 34 companies said to be contaminating the Matanza-Riachuelo river basin in northeastern Buenos Aires.

“The crackdown, which included leather tanneries, food packing plants, vehicle junk-yards, and chemical producers, was accompanied by a court order from Federal Circuit Judge Luis Armella, and follows a recent verdict by the Supreme Court in which the River Basin Authority, a multi-jurisdictional body headed by the SAYDS and tasked with the river clean-up program, must inspect the totality of companies contaminating the basin,” explains a recent …

Published on
September 19, 2008
  0 Comments 625 views

15
Sep

CAFTA blocked for ignoring indigenous rights

Last week, Costa Rica’s highest court overturned an intellectual property law the United states demands for the enactment of the US-Central America Free Trade Agreement, commonly referred to as “CAFTA.”

The court said that the law - which included provisions on biodiversity - was improperly passed because the government failed “…to consult the indigenous people, in accordance with Convention 169 of the International Labor Organization.”

Seen as a major victory for opponents to ‘free trade’, the government may now miss its Oct. 1 deadline to pass all the reforms needed to enter CAFTA.

“Following the ruling, the government issued a statement expressing concerns that Costa Rica might not make it to CAFTA, ratified here in referendum last October,” reports the Tico Times.

“The government is ‘greatly concerned about the impact of this ruling, in particular because of the issue of deadlines that …

Published on
September 15, 2008
  0 Comments 351 views

01
Sep

B.C. Court rules on consultation obligations to First Nations

“The Crown’s obligation to reasonably consult is not fulfilled simply by providing a process within which to exchange and discuss information”, states B.C. Supreme Court Justice Kathryn Neilson in her final ruling on the Crown’s consultation obligations to Indigenous People.

The case, Wii’litswx v. British Columbia, was centered around the B.C. Forestry Ministry’s failure to reasonably (adequately) consult the Gitanyow First Nation when they issued licenses that gave logging companies access to a part of the Gitanyow’s traditional territory.

“Judge Nielson pointed out that there was ‘a long and troubled history of over-logging and unfulfilled silviculture obligations on Gitanyow traditional territory’”, notes Mohawk Nation News (MNN). “The Crown agreed that it had ‘a duty to meaningfully consult with the Gitanyow in good faith and to reasonably accommodate its concerns and interests’. It ignored them. As the judge said, ‘Meaningful …

Published on
September 1, 2008
  0 Comments 617 views

Video activism and the Chiapas Media Project

In the following presentation, Claudia Magallanes-Blanco from the University of Western Sydney talks about the role of video activism as a world-wide tool for empowerment and the Chiapas Media Project, a collaborative effort based in Mexico that provides indigenous Zapatistas in Chiapas and peasants in Guerrero with training and equipment to produce their own videos.

Since forming in 1998, CMP has distributed over 6000 videos, including: Zapata’s Garden, a film that looks at the society the Zapatista’s are building; …


I Am A Defender of the Rainforest

Known as ‘Soy defensor de la selva’ in Spanish, I am a Defender of the Rainforest is an award-winning documentary that was filmed, edited, and directed by members of the Sarayaku community in southern Ecuador.

The film shows how the …


Underreported Struggles #19, October 2008

In this month’s Underreported Struggles: 400,000 Guatemalans Reject Development Model, Philippines Indigenous People Unite for the Land, Riot Police Target Algonquin Blockade, Chagos Islanders Denied the Right of Return, and 17 other stories …


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