In conclusion that the non -profit group Greenpeace began the defamation, mistreatment and other illegal actions of protesters opposite the Dakota Pipeline of Access, a North Dakota jury has awarded more than $ 660 million in damage to damage to the energy transfer (ET) LP LP, the petroleum company and gas based on dallas and developer/developer.
The jury of nine people in Mandan, ND, on March 19 found that Greenpeace was responsible for the slander, mistreatment, interfering with property and other illegal behavior in 2016 and 2017, while protesters who numbered the thousands joined a protest by the Sioux tribe and camped for months near the State Rock Reserve. Dakota. The project was not located on tribal ground, but was below the water source of the Standing Roca reserves, which the group saw how pollutant and driers native native lands.
The energy transfer accused Greenpeace also participated in an advertising campaign that delayed and increased the cost of $ 300 million of the 1,720 miles, 30 inches that extend from North Dakota to Patoka, Ill. The Pipeline crosses four states and has been operating since 2017, according to the Dakota Access Pipeline website. The pipeline moves more than half a million gallons of crude daily and crosses the oahe lake, which The Standing Roca Sioux is confident in drinking water.
Energy Transfer claims that the campaign made false claims, including that the pipeline embedded the lands of the tribal treaty, dried the sacred places of the tribe and had used excessive and illegal quite illegal against the peaceful protesters.
Greenpeace has maintained that he only provided support to protesters instead of directing or fostering any illegal activity.
“The demand for ET tries to rewrite the history of the Indian protest of Standing Rock could have a chill impact on free expression in the United States and beyond,” Greenpeace said in a statement.
In a statement after the verdict, Vicki Granado, spokesman for energy transfer, said that demand “is a victory for all Americans who respect the law who understand the difference between free expression and breach of law.”
Sushma Raman, interim executive of Greenpeace Inc. And Greenpeace Fund said he will appeal the verdict to the Supreme Court of North Dakota.
“It is part of a renewed push of corporations to arm our courts to silence dissent,” a statement said. “We should all worry about the future of the first amendment and demands like this aimed to destroy our rights to peaceful protest and free expression.”
Greenpeace said that the case is an example of a strategic demand against public participation (SLAPP), who said they are the attempts to “bury the non -profit and activists in legal rates, to promote them to bankruptcy and, finally, the silence dissent.”
In February 2024, Greenpeace International began the first test of the European Union’s anti-Slapp law when he filed a lawsuit in a Dutch court against energy transfer, which he sought to recover all the damage and costs that he has suffered as a result of demands in the EU that demanded hundreds of millions of dollars against Greenpeace and the various organizations in Greenpeace in the United States.
“The transfer of energy has not heard the last of us in this struggle,” said Kristin Casper, Greenpeace’s international general counselor, in a statement. “We just started with our anti-Slapp demand against the attacks of energy transfer to free expression and peaceful protest. We will see the transfer of energy to the court in July in the Netherlands. We will not go down again. We will not be silenced.”
