Greenpeace will be on a trial before the jury in northern Dakota in a bomb litter that, if successful, could bankrupt the group.
The Energy Transfer with headquarters in Dallas sued Greenpeace in 2017, accusing him of master protests of building Dakota Access pipelines near Stang Rock Sioux almost a decade ago. Activists say that a lawsuit is a thinly curved tactic for combating free speech and placing cold precedent for protest groups, and that Greenpeace played only a supporting role in the demonstrations led by the Indians.
“This is the trial of the critical test of the future of the first amendment, and freedom of speech and a peaceful protest under Trump’s administration and beyond,” the temporary director of Greenpeace, Sushma Raman Raman, said on Thursday.
He refused to comment on the transmission of energy before the trial. In a statement in August, it is stated that a lawsuit against Greenpeace “does not apply to freedom of speech trying to claim. It is not to follow the law.”
Greenpeace said the required compensation would be $ 300 million, which is more than 10 times more than the annual group budget. Two related entities were also appointed as defendants: Greenpeace Fund, located in Washington, and allocate grants to other groups, and Greenpeace International, based in the Netherlands.
The trial should last five weeks at the Mandan State Court, and many observers are skeptical that Greenpeace, one of the most famous environmental groups in the world, will be able to win the jury in a conservative north dacota.
The election of President Trump as the Interior Secretary, Doug Burgum, was a governor of the state until last year. Kelcy Warren, founder and executive president of the LP for Energy Transfer, is a supporter of the president and the main donor.
The Dakota access pipeline was approved in 2016, encouraging the protests of the Indian, who said they would engage in the Holy Land and endanger the supply of water. The price of 1,170 kilometers carries an oil from northern Dakota to Illinois.
Thousands of people traveled from all over the country to join a months -long camp near the reservation, and tribal leaders sued to stop the pipeline. Used the slogan “Water is life.” Police and private security clashed with protesters repeatedly, and Energy transfer said the crucial equipment had been damaged and his chances of funding had been harmed.
Waniya Locke, an activist living on Standing Rock, said the movement was organically developed and was led by women. “We stood on the river shores unarmed,” she said.
The camp was eventually demolished and the pipeline works, through final approval they are still waiting.
The Energy transfer lawsuit was first filed against the wider series of accused in the 2017 Federal Court, stating that the violations of the Law on Influence and Corrupted Organizations, or Rico, were a statute for organized crime. He was rejected by Judge Billy Roy Wilson from the United States District Court for North Dakota, who wrote that the accusations fell “far from what needed to establish a company in Ricu.”
A similar appeal was then filed in the State Court. The latest version of the lawsuit accuses the accused of violation, defamation, conspiracy and painful interference with work. He says Greenpeace has expanded disinformation that encouraged protests and seriously damaged his ability to run his business.
Deep Padmanabha, lawyer Greenpeace, said the group supported the protests and was involved in the training of people in non -violent direct action, but that it was not central to the efforts. She said that the claims involving the offense, in particular, sought to impose a “collective protest responsibility”, in which each group could be responsible for the actions of each person present.
She offered an example of a non -violent protester who is responsible for the actions of “unknown people who, for example, lit building equipment.” She added that “it is quite easy to see that if it is successful, this tactic could have a serious chilling effect on anyone who could consider participating in the protest.”
Greenpeace considers a Slappi or strategic lawsuit against participating in the public, an expression related to lawsuits intended for the silence of critics or cost them the time and money that defends the case. Some US countries, although not northern Dakota, have laws that make it easier to rejection of lawsuits that have been shown to be SLAPP cases. In the European Union, a new directive also offers some protection from them to groups within its borders.
Citing the EU Directive other Dutch laws, Greenpeace International this month endured the counter As opposed to the transmission of energy in Amsterdam, trying to regain the costs implemented during the litigation. Kristin Casper, General Advisor for Greenpeace International, said that the first hearing in that litigation would be held in July.
