Back from Big Mountain

On November 21st - 28th, Seeds of Peace travelled from Missoula, Montana to Big Mountain (Black Mesa), Arizona to support the annual Thinksgiving Food and Supply Run. Around a hundred volunteers from around the country spent months organizing support caravans, bringing food and supplies for the Diné (Navajo) elders resisting forced relocation and coal mining, and helping the elders prepare for winter by chopping wood, herding sheep, and making repairs to houses, corals, and hogaans.

We would like to give a huge thank you to Black Mesa Indigenous Support for their amazing work, and, most of all, to the Diné elders, for their generous hospitality and inspirational resilience in the face of the genocidal machinations of the U.S. Government and Peabody Coal.

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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
December 14, 2009

PITTSBURGH - The American Civil Liberties Union of Pennsylvania and the Center for Constitutional Rights announced today they have filed papers to expand and continue a civil rights lawsuit against the City of Pittsburgh, city officials and police officers for their repeated harassment and intimidation of two climate and environmental-justice organizations whose efforts to organize and support demonstrations during September's G-20 Summit were completely frustrated.

"The First Amendment does not allow the government to use possible vandalism by a few to justify suppressing the free-speech rights of many, but that's exactly what Pittsburgh officials did during the G-20," said Witold Walczak, the ACLU of Pennsylvania's Legal Director and one of the groups' lawyers. "Pittsburgh city officials must be held accountable for systematically and deliberately suppressing non-violent climate and environment-justice demonstrations."

An amended complaint in the lawsuit, which was originally filed September 21, was filed late Friday night in U.S. District Court for the Western District of Pennsylvania. The suit alleges that City of Pittsburgh officials deliberately adopted a strategy to harass, intimidate, discourage and ultimately prevent Three Rivers Climate Convergence and the Seeds of Peace Collective from exercising their constitutionally protected rights to free speech and assembly during the International Coal Conference and the G-20 Summit in Pittsburgh during the week of September 20, 2009.

This lawsuit is the first of what is expected to be several cases filed against the City of Pittsburgh and other law enforcement agencies for their interference with and harassment of demonstrators during the G20 Summit and International Coal Conference. [read more] [read the complaint] [in the news]