#StandingRock Chair on #Greenpeace Verdict -- False, Self-serving Narrative in Insulting Lawsuit

"If Greenpeace can be held liable for telling the truth about #SiouxNation Treaty rights, then we are all in trouble."

By Standing Rock Chairwoman Janet Alkire, via #CensoredNews, March 27, 2025

"As Chairwoman of the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe, I take offense to the jury verdict in the #EnergyTransfer #SLAPP lawsuit against Greenpeace. We expect more from #NorthDakota judges and members of the jury from our neighboring communities.

"#EnergyTransfer’s claims in this case were ridiculous. They were wholly disrespectful of the #StandingRockSioux Tribe, our ancestors, and our youth, who started the movement in 2016 to protect our water from an oil spill from #DAPL. Neither Greenpeace nor anyone else paid or persuaded Standing Rock to oppose DAPL.

"Our young people and our elders urged us to protect our water and #UnciMakah (grandmother earth). That is what happened, and is happening still. Energy Transfer’s false and self-serving narrative that Greenpeace manipulated Standing Rock into protesting DAPL is patronizing and disrespectful to our people.

"We understand that many Morton County residents support the #OilIndustry, even out-of-state #pipeline companies such as Energy Transfer. But we are your neighbors, and you should not be fooled that easily. Energy Transfer does not know us. They don’t know who we are – an Indigenous Nation that has survived every attack because our ancestors are with us.

"Greenpeace did not manipulate Standing Rock, but #EnergyTransfer has manipulated #MortonCounty. DAPL crosses our Treaty and aboriginal land for hundreds of miles.

"Our ancestors occupied this land for thousands of years before #NorthDakota came into existence. The land between the Heart and Missouri River are our #unceded Treaty lands under the 1868 and 1851 Fort Laramie Treaties. Our aboriginally-occupied territories extend east to the James River and beyond. That is a historical truth. If Greenpeace can be held liable for telling the truth about Sioux Nation Treaty rights, then we are all in trouble.

"The construction of Fort Rice on our northern boundary in 1864 was a violation of the Fort Laramie Treaties. This required our Tribe to be vigilant. No one should be surprised that warrior society burials are found in this area, near the pipeline route.

"And do not insult our cultural experts, who have wisdom over matters most residents of Morton County or bureaucrats at the State Historical Society know absolutely nothing about. Energy Transfer and its lawyers should be ashamed of themselves. Everyday North Dakotans on the jury should know better.

"When it comes to the excessive police and private security response to the generally peaceful protests at #CannonBall, believe your eyes. The scenes of guard dogs menacing Tribal members are reminiscent of the violence of #WhiteSupremacists in the #DeepSouth during the 1950’s and 60’s, but it was in North Dakota, in this day and age. It was on the news and on the internet.

"Many of the protesters were Native American veterans of the United States armed forces. Energy Transfer used attack dogs against peaceful protesters and war heroes. But the jury sided with the out-of-state, unlicensed security with the attack dogs, instead of North Dakota veterans who supported Standing Rock.

"A Texas oil company has come to North Dakota, and its lawyers and propaganda machine are weaving stories about how the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe and our supporters have lied, and how the poor pipeline company, a trillion dollars richer than in 2016 when this all started, should receive extra millions from non-profit organizations. It’s a funny thing about liars – they always accuse everyone else of lying. The Greenpeace trial was marked by secrecy.

"The court is not making the transcript public. The documents obtained by Greenpeace about Energy Transfer’s terrible safety record are protected by a secrecy order and are not available to the public. The judge exhibited so much bias in favor of Energy Transfer that a team of international human rights lawyers felt compelled to monitor the trial. One prominent monitor stated 'In my six decades of legal practice, I have never witnessed a trial as unfair as the one against Greenpeace that just ended in the courts of North Dakota.'

"Standing Rock has tried to work for greater transparency on DAPL. It is our experience with the Army Corps of Engineers and Energy Transfer that all documents relating to DAPL pipeline safety are heavily redacted, and kept secret. What are they hiding? Who is looking out for the communities that may be affected by an oil spill? And why didn’t the North Dakota court allow Greenpeace to address these questions at the trial?

"DAPL is a dangerous pipeline. It crosses our unceded Treaty and aboriginal land. Energy Transfer destroyed Tribal burials as identified by our cultural experts, and committed violence against our people. That is the history that North Dakota and Morton County must reckon with. After the Greenpeace verdict, that day seems farther off than ever."

Source:
https://bsnorrell.blogspot.com/2025/03/standing-rock-chair-on-greenpeace.html
#StandWithStandingRock #SLAPPsLawsuits #SLAPPs #FossilFuel #BigOilAndGas #Academi #EricPrince #Blackwater #ACAB #PrivateSecurity #BigOil #KelcyWarren #Oiligarchy #CorporateColonialism #WaterProtectors #StevenDonziger #EnvironmentalRacism #ReaderSupportedNews #CorporateFascism #SilencingDissent #StandingRockReservation

The Satanic Temple is very bad at court cases.

A federal district court judge in New York today sided with the online magazine Newsweek against The Satanic Temple, a tax-exempt church, finding there was no basis by the nontheistic religious organization to continue the defamation case against the publisher.

https://queersatanic.com/the-satanic-temple-loses-slapp-libel-case-against-newsweek/

This should be the end of a case that started either three or five years ago, depending on what you want to start counting by.

The Satanic Temple sued the Newsweek and its reporter Julia Duin in February 2022 in retaliation for Duin writing and Newsweek publishing a critical article about TST in October 2021; that article centered on TST suing four former Washington State members in April 2020. That is, us. The Temple repeatedly lost their lawsuits against us over the next four-plus, the final one ending in October 2024.

Also, it's not official yet, but "Satanic Temple’s Idaho Abortion Ban Appeal Looks Likely to Fail"

Title comes from this Bloomberg writeup that probably is paywalled, but is pretty negative:
https://news.bloomberglaw.com/health-law-and-business/satanic-temples-idaho-abortion-ban-appeal-looks-likely-to-fail

> A panel of Ninth Circuit judges on Wednesday appeared unlikely to give the Satanic Temple another shot at suing Idaho over measures that bar it from providing abortion care to members in the state.
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> Questions of the group’s standing to sue—personal, associational, organizational, or otherwise—dominated the oral arguments, with Judge M. Margaret McKeown asking attorneys for both sides to clarify how the Satanic Temple can proceed when it hasn’t named any member who lives in Idaho, is pregnant, and wants to end the pregnancy.
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> It can’t, state’s attorney Alan Hurst told the US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit.
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> But W. James Mac Naughton, a private practitioner in Newton, N.J., representing the Satanic Temple, said there’s a “statistical probability” that such a person exists. In his analysis, at least three people in Idaho currently are being harmed by laws that prevent the Satanic Temple from setting up a clinic or mailing abortion-inducing pills into the state, he said.
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> Without a name, however, there’s no way to show the Satanic Temple’s claimed harm is anything more that pure speculation, Hurst said.
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> Judge John B. Owens didn’t have any substantive questions for the attorneys, while Judge Ronald M. Gould stayed silent.

It goes on about some more of the background, but you can also just see all of their cases on The.Satanic.Wiki.

This Courthouse news article should be fully accessible and also characterizes it similarly:
https://www.courthousenews.com/idaho-says-satanic-temple-doesnt-have-standing-in-abortion-challenge/

> “This case is about coerced motherhood and money,” James Mac Naughton, an attorney representing the Satanic Temple, told the court.
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> But before Mac Naughton got too far into his argument, U.S. Circuit Judge Mary McKeown questioned him about the Temple’s standing.
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> “Maybe you can explain to me what have you alleged that give you the predicates of associational standing?” Bill Clinton appointee asked.