In Minnesota, an appeals court has overturned the felony conviction of a water protector who was criminally prosecuted as part of a brutal crackdown on nonviolent Indigenous leaders and protesters opposing the Enbridge Line 3 pipeline. The court found “pervasive” prosecutorial misconduct and irregularities in the case, ordering a new trial. Mylene Vialard was arrested in 2021 after attaching herself to a 25-foot bamboo tower erected to block a Line 3 pumping station in Aitkin County. She appeared on Democracy Now! in 2023.
Mylene Vialard: “I’m here for my daughter and my daughter’s daughter and all their children and grandchildren. I’m here because there is a real climate crisis, and nobody seems to care. I’m here because that’s the only thing I can do right now. I have to show up, and I have to defend this land and have to defend the rights of the people who have been on this land forever.”
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