Greenpeace entered the trial on Monday in North Dakota in a bomb lawsuit, if it succeeded, it could escape the floors group.
The Dallas -based Energy Transfer Company has filed a lawsuit against Greenpeace in 2017, accusing him of the upper loud protests on building a Dakota pipeline near Standing Rock Sioux almost a decade ago. Activists say the lawsuit is a veiled tactic to deceive freedom of expression and put a pre -chilling precedent for protest groups, and that Greenpeace only played a supportive role in the demonstrations led by the indigenous Americans.
“This trial is a decisive test for the future of the first amendment, both the freedom of expression and the peaceful protest within the framework of the Trump administration and beyond,” said Sushma Raman, Director General of Greenpes, on Thursday.
He refused to transfer energy to comment before the trial. In a statement in August, she said that the lawsuit against Greenpeace was “not related to freedom of expression because they were trying to claim. It was about not following the law.”
Greenpeace said that the damaged damage will reach $ 300 million, which is the number of more than 10 times the annual budget of the group. Two entities are also associated with their defendants: the Green Peace Fund, which is based in Washington and awards for other groups, and Greenpeace International, which is based in the Netherlands.
The jury has started on Monday, and the trial in the state court in Mandan is scheduled to continue, and many observers may question that Greenpeace, one of the most famous environmental activists in the world, is able to win a jury in the conservative Northern Dakota.
President Trump’s choice of the Minister of Interior, Doug Burgoum, the ruler of the state until last year. Kelssy Warren, founder and CEO of LP energy transport, is a supporter of the president and a major donor.
The arrival pipeline was approved in Dakota in 2016, which sparked protests from the indigenous Americans, who said it would encroach on the Holy Land and be at risk. The pipeline is 1,170 miles of oil from Northern Dakota to Illinois.
Thousands of people from all over the country have traveled to join a camp for months near the reservation, and tribal leaders prosecute the pipeline. They used the slogan “Water is life”. Police and private security clashed with the demonstrators on many occasions, and the transfer of energy said that the decisive equipment was damaged and that the funding prospects had been damaged.
Waniya Locke, activist who lives on Standing Rock, said the movement has evolved organically and led by women. “We stood on the banks of the river unarmed,” she said.
The camp was finally demolished, and the pipeline works, although the final approvals are still hanging.
A law against energy was filed for the first time against a broader group of defendants in the Federal Court in 2017, claiming violations of the affected and corrupt organizations law, or Rico, a law designed to defeat organized crime. He was rejected by Judge Billy Roy Wilson of the local United States Court in North Dakota, who wrote that these allegations were “much less than what was required to create the Rico Foundation.”
Then a similar complaint was filed in the state court. The latest version of the lawsuit accuses the defendants of violators, defamation, conspiracy and arbitrary interference with business. Greenpeace says wrong information inciting protests and strongly inflicted her ability to manage her business.
Diba Badmanab, the Green Peace Lawyer, said that the group supported the protests and that it participated in training people in direct, non -violent work, but it was not essential to efforts. She said that the allegations involved in the infringement, in particular, sought to impose a “mass protest responsibility”, as any group could be responsible for the actions of each person in the attendance.
An example of a non -violent protester was offered responsible for the actions of “the unknown persons who, for example, shot construction equipment.” “It is very easy to see how, if he succeeds, this type of tactic can have a serious impact on anyone who may consider participating in protest.”
Greenpeace is a Slapp, or a strategic lawsuit against public participation, a term referring to lawsuits that aim to silence critics or cost them time and money in defending the case. Some American states, although they are not Northern Dakota, have laws that facilitate the rejection of lawsuits that are found to be SLAP cases. In the European Union, a new direction also provides some protection to groups within its borders.
Quoting the directive of the European Union and other Dutch laws, Greenpeace International presented this month a double against energy transport in Amsterdam, seeking to recover the costs intended during the litigation. Christine Casper, General Adviser to Greenpeace International, said the first hearing in that lawsuit will be held in July.