#indigenousland — Public Fediverse posts

Contesting #Surveillance Infrastructure on #IndigenousLands

by #OpheliaRivas, #CaitlinBlanchfield, and #NinaKolowratnik

"The broad slope and rounded crest of O’ks Tak’am Do’ak outline the profile of a woman sitting and facing the west. Her name is O’ks Ta’kam. She is part the O’odham origin story, passed down through oral history. She sits there vigilant, a warrior protecting, and will warn the people when a catastrophic event will occur. When this event comes, she will stand and gather the smallest creatures in her skirt to protect them.

"The mountain forms part of the Tak’Va’Vak range which cuts through #TohonoOodham land, joining peaks like Han’a-mek and Ma’mke-mad. These mountains are known as a place to gather sweet fruits from the chu-chues (organ pipe cactus). They are home to caves, springs, and seasonal water holes. Each year ceremonies and hunts take place all across the Tak’Va’Vak, and trails lead through the mountain passes, connecting the springs at A’al Va’pai (Quitobaqito) to O’odham villages in Sonora, and leading all the way to the salty Ge-Ka-ch’k (Sea of Cortez). The mountains hold deer, mountain rams, javalina. They hold burial places. Medicines grow there. In the evening they are especially beautiful, bathed in crimson.

"The Tak’Va’Vak range also forms one border of the Tohono O’odham Nation. The boundary runs along the ridge line and separates the reservation from the Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument, a United States national park to the west.

"The border with the #NationalMonument is one of three that divide Tohono O’odham Nation from the #UnitedStates; the reservation’s southern border is with #Mexico. It is this border that dominates the others—both in its real effects and in media representations—and with good reason, especially in the last decades, and acutely in the present moment. It separates the Tohono O’odham in Sonora from those in Arizona, dividing the people; and its securitization has brought violence and destruction to O’odham lands on both sides in different ways. Yet these two borders—one between nation states and one between reservation and national park—work together: they are part of the same process of colonialism and dispossession that have been constricting O’odham life for hundreds of years. The construction of the US-Mexico border is intertwined with the expropriation of #IndigenousLand and the subsequent creation of #NativeAmerican reservations as much as it is with United States expansionism and policies of exclusion. More than that, the US-Mexico border, and the many weapons, technologies of surveillance, and #BorderPatrol officers that comprise it, is an extension of the United States’ ongoing, violent, and racialized campaign to contain and assimilate Indigenous peoples—it is a settler colonial border. But as Salt River Pima-Maricopa scholar #FantasiaPainter reminds us, the #borderlands are not yet settled, and they are unsettled: this is because of the refusal of Tohono O’odham and other #IndigenousPeoples to see and accept their lands as not their own."

Read more:
https://urbannext.net/significant-impact-contesting-surveillance/

#SettlerColonialism #SurveillanceState #USPol #CulturalGenocide
#NoBorderWall #TrumpsBorderWall
#ProtectTheSacred #EnvironmentalProtectionAct
#RespectTheTreaties #AbolishICE #DefundDHS #MurderPatrol #BorderPatrol #IndigenousSacredSites
#DepartmentOfHomelandInsecurity

'#DataColonialism': Native Communities Fight #AI #DataCenters on #IndigenousLand

#DemocracyNow, April 22, 2026

"The artificial intelligence industry’s #DataCenter boom is the latest chapter in a long history of #EnvironmentalRacism and resource exploitation in vulnerable Native communities, says Oglala Lakota and Northern Cheyenne activist #KrystalTwoBulls, the executive director of #HonorTheEarth, an Indigenous-led #EnvironmentalJustice organization that is tracking over 100 proposed data center projects on tribal and rural lands. We speak to Two Bulls about the myriad impacts of what she calls a 'modern-day iteration' of '#SettlerColonialism,' including #NoisePollution, #cancers and respiratory illnesses, water depletion, #EnergyGrid overload and even '#EcologicalCollapse.' As tech companies set their sights on Indigenous lands, Two Bulls says, 'We’re always the one that ends up having to sacrifice our relationship to land, air, water, our communities and our nonhuman relatives.' "

Read / listen / watch:
https://www.democracynow.org/2026/4/22/krystal_twobulls_indigenous_lands_data_centers

#AirIsLife #WaterIsLife #AISucks #AIDataCenters #CorporateColonialism #ResistAI

#Wetsuweten will be in court on August 21, 2025 as #Canada has filed a #MotionToStrike against their #climate #litigation case. Sound familiar? That’s because in July 2020, Canada filed a Motion to Strike against the Misdzi Yikh Charter challenge. Several years and an appeal hearing (that ended with the Federal Court of Appeal deciding that the section 7 of the Charter challenge was justiciable) later, Canada has filed for another Motion to Strike. Keep a lookout on RAVEN’s channels as we get closer to the hearing, we’ll be sharing lots of educational materials and actions to take to support Wet’suwet’en. Learn more about the #CharterCase and #donate to support the #legal action here.

https://raventrust.com/campaigns/wetsuweten/

#IndigenousRights #NativeRights #Law #CDNpoli #BCpoli #StopEcocide #Injustice #colonialism #capitalism #IndigenousLand #BritishColumbia #UNDRIP #FirstNations

I received a notice from the city regarding a nearby property. The neighbours want to put an additional dwelling on the property, and the city wants to know if I have any issues with that. I said I personally have no problems with that so long as the big maple trees aren't damaged/destroyed, but I do want to know if the city contacts Six Nations re. any development. After all, this is their land, and they have placed a moratorium upon development. I'm curious to hear what the folks at City Hall have to say about that.

Edit: I heard back. Response in the comments. #HaldimandTract #ProtectTheTract #SixNations #IndigenousLand #LandBack #Haudenosaunee #Anishinaabeg @waterlooregion

More than 300 #HumanRights activists were killed in 2019, report reveals

#Colombia was the bloodiest nation with 103 murders and the #Philippines was second, followed by #Brazil, #Honduras and #Mexico

by Nina Lakhani, 14 Jan, 2020

"More than 300 human rights defenders working to protect the #environment, #FreeSpeech, #LGBTQ+ rights and #IndigenousLand in 31 countries were killed in 2019, a new report reveals.

"Two-thirds of the total killings took place in #LatinAmerica where impunity from prosecution is the norm.

"Colombia, where targeted violence against community leaders opposing environmentally destructive #megaprojects has spiraled since the 2016 peace accords, was the bloodiest nation with 106 murders in 2019. The Philippines was the second deadliest country with 43 killings, followed by Honduras, Brazil and Mexico.

"2019 was characterized by waves of social uprisings demanding political and economic changes across the globe from Iraq and Lebanon in the Middle East to Hong Kong and India in Asia and Chile in the Americas.

"The report by #FrontLineDefenders (#FLD) details the physical assaults, defamation campaigns, digital security threats, judicial harassment, and gender-based attacks faced by human rights defenders across the world, who were on the frontline of protests against deep seated #inequalities, #corruption and #authoritarianism.

"In the cases for which the data is available, the report found:
• 85% of those killed last year had previously been threatened either individually or as part of the community or group in which they worked.

• 13% of those reported killed were women.

• 40% of those killed worked on land, #IndigenousPeoples and environmental issues.


"In nearly all countries that experienced mass protests last year, human rights defenders – who mobilized #marches, documented police and military abuses, and helped citizens who were injured or arrested – were specifically targeted.

"For instance, in #Chile, in the biggest anti-government protests since the end of the Augusto Pinochet dictatorship, at least 23 people were killed and 2,300 injured, with scores blinded by non-lethal projectiles.

"In #Iraq, where #Anticorruption protests during October and November left more than 300 people dead, Saba Al Mahdawi was abducted and held for nearly two weeks by unidentified militants. She was most likely targeted as a result of her work providing food, water and medical aid to injured protesters.

"#Honduras, a key geopolitical US ally, has been one of the most dangerous countries in the world to be a woman, lawyer, journalist and land or environmental defender since the 2009 military-backed coup unleashed a wave of unchecked violence. Last year, targeted killings in the Central American country increased fourfold compared to 2018, as tens of thousands of people fled a toxic mix of violence, poverty and corruption, and journeyed overland through Mexico to the US southern border in search of security.
Yet despite difficult and frightening circumstances, human rights activists have continued to spearhead positive social changes.

"For instance, #Mexican #reproductiverights defenders celebrated the legalisation of abortion in the state of Oaxaca – following in the footsteps of Mexico City 12 years earlier. While in Jordan, lawmakers withdrew the cybercrime bill, which proposed restrictions to the freedom of speech and the right to privacy, after a high-profile campaign by civil society groups.

"Andrew Anderson, executive director of FLD, said: 'In 2019, we saw human rights defenders on the frontlines defending and advancing rights in Hong Kong, Chile, Iraq, Algeria, Zimbabwe, Spain and many other cities and towns around the world. And despite repression, they continue to advance visions of their societies and the world that put to shame not only their own governments and leaders, but also the international community.'"

https://www.theguardian.com/law/2020/jan/14/300-human-rights-activists-killed-2019-report

#DigitalFreeSpeech #DirectAction #Fascism #CriminalizingDissent #WaterProtectors #ForestDefenders #EnvironmentalActivists #ClimateActivists #ClimateJustice #SilencingDissent #CorporateColonialism #EcoActivists #Censorship #HumanRightsViolations #Article20 #RightToProtest