by Amanda Froelich, True Activist

Since Donald Trump won the presidential election last week, the media has been fixated on his every move and statement. This has had negative reprecussions for activists near Cannon Ball, North Dakota, where development of the four-state Dakota Access pipeline (DAPL) continues, despite federal orders mandating for it to be stopped.

Activists and “water protectors” who have been camped out and protesting since Spring have gone to extreme lengths to halt its construction. Supporters of the Standing Rock Sioux tribe believe that the DAPL’s development will not only contaminate the Missouri river, but will uproot sacred burial ground. With Donald Trump in the spotlight, the threat to the activists’ movement has never been greater.

by Whitney Webb, True Activist

Wild Buffaloes in North Dakota have been corralled without access to food or water to “protect” the construction site of the Dakota Access pipeline.

Though the recent protests in the US would have you think that the biggest crisis facing the United States is Donald Trump’s surprise win, Native Americans have gathered in historic numbers to defend native territory from the Dakota Access Pipeline. The pipeline, if completed, will span 1,170 miles at a cost of approximately $3.7 billion. The company behind the pipeline, Energy Transfer Partners, has pushed on with the project, despite covering up its dangers and circumventing the law.

by Whitney Webb, True Activist

by Brianna Acuesta, True Activist

As the pressure to start construction on the Dakota Access Pipeline increases, so does the violence used against peaceful protesters. Many have noticed that the arms against these indigenous people is a little overkill, and even paralleled the armed soldiers with those fighting wars over oil abroad in Iraq and other Middle Eastern nations.

Human rights abuses have increased as well, and one such woman that experienced this is a young woman that was not even protesting when she was pulled over and mistreated by law enforcement. LaDonna Brave Bull Allard, the woman’s mother, told her daughter’s story in an interview with TYT:

“When [the police] got her up [to the station], she had said to me, ‘Mom, they took me in a room and three male officers and one female officer stripped me naked.’ Then they took her naked and they put in her the jail cell and left her there all night. Then in the morning they came and gave her an orange jumpsuit.”

by Amanda Froelich, True Activist

Tensions continue to escalate in Cannon Ball, North Dakota, where protestors attempt to peacefully face off against riot police and the National Guard. In addition to being maced and beaten with batons, activists opposing the four-state Dakota Access Pipeline (DAPL) have been tased and even shot with rubber bullets.

As the recent incident (below) reveals, violence seems to only be escalating rather than ceasing. Though the UN has called on the U.S. government to halt all construction of the pipeline, its development continues. Desperate and on edge, activists at Standing Rock continue to put their lives on the line, unaware of what will come next – prepared to expect anything. Unfortunately, what recently occurred is a reminder of the danger people protesting corporate greed face.

During an interview with Cantapeta Creek, activist and journalist Erin Schrode was talking when out of nowhere, police shot her with a rubber bullet. She can be heard screaming, “Ow!” before crumbling to the ground.