Article by PBI-Canada

Photo by Defend O’odham Jewed.

On Monday October 12, two O’odham groups, Defend O’odham Jewed and the O’odham Anti Border Collective, held an Indigenous Peoples’ Day blockade on Highway 85 on unceded Hia-Ced O’odham land in Arizona.

On October 13, Common Dreams reported: “Twelve people, including at least eight Native Americans, were arrested near an immigration checkpoint in Southern Arizona on Indigenous Peoples’ Day after United States Border Patrol agents and Arizona law enforcement officials violently repressed a peaceful action held Monday morning by roughly 30 land and water protectors.”

A 43-second video on Twitter of them being tear gassed and fired on with rubber bullets can be seen here.

The land and water protectors were released by 10 pm that evening.

That article adds: “The O’odham Anti Border Collective … organized an Indigenous prayer ceremony to voice opposition to the cultural and ecological destruction caused by the construction of President Donald Trump’s border wall.”

The Collective has highlighted: “The U.S / Mexico international border cuts through ancestral O’odham homelands. Trumps border wall is now desecrating those homelands by blasting grave sites, depleting scarce water resources for construction, posing threats to endangered species and committing colonial violence on indigenous lives.”

Among the demands being made by the O’odham Anti Border Collective are: End the checkpoints and remove all Customs and Border Protection agencies from O’odham lands; Immediate and indefinite discontinuation of border wall construction at Quitobaquito Springs and throughout O’odham territories; and Immediate demilitarization of O’odham lands.”

Their full list of demands can be read here.

For more, you can visit the Facebook page of the O’odham Anti Border Collective and the Instagram page of Defend O’odham Jewed.

The GoFundMe page for their legal fund can be found here.

Photo: Land and water protectors on their way to jail.