Wednesday, April 26, 2017

At UN Indigenous Forum, Inner City Press Asks of Protest of Citigroup Funding Dakota Access Pipeline


By Matthew Russell Lee


UNITED NATIONS, April 24 – On the eve of Citigroup's annual general meeting of shareholders and a planned protest of the bank for among other things funding the Dakota Access Pipeline, Inner City Press at the UN on April 24 asked a panel of the Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues about the protest and more generally about corporations which the UN blue-washes through its Global Compact and otherwise. Video here, from Minute 39. 
Willie Littlechild a First Nations Cree chief from Canada said he wasn't (yet) aware of the protest, but that he supported it, that is it hard to protest at the UN. That's putting it mildly: the US First Amendment does not apply to and is not accepted by the UN, which bans protests and evicts the Press which covers there, without hearing or appeal. But Inner City Press, even confined to minders within the UN has it has been for 14 months and counting, interviewed other attendees of the Permanent Forum, about the protest planned at Coopers Union on 7th Street in Manhattan. We'll have more on this.