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Source: Earth First! Newswire
Halifax Media Co-op reports that a piece of drilling equipment was set ablaze on the 24th, by person or persons unknown. This comes amidst escalating resistance to hydraulic fracturing by indigenous peoples in Elsipogtog, “New Brunswick”.
This comes after numerous direct actions, the midnight seizure of drilling equipment, and a local man being struck by a contractor’s vehicle.
Source: APTN News
Twelve people were arrested Friday morning by the RCMP at the site of a sacred fire as part of an on-going protest in New Brunswick over seismic testing in the area.
RCMP spokeswoman Cpl. Chantal Farrah said the arrests were made because people were attempting to block trucks and workers.
Farrah said seven men and five women were taken into custody on Route 126 outside Moncton near Elisipogtog First Nation.
The sacred fire was lit by members of Elsipogtog on June 11 beside a highway where seismic testing vehicles are searching for shale gas deposits.
Opponents of the exploration fear that once the company, SWN Resources Canada, finds shale gas, it won’t be long before it employs a controversial drilling technique called hydraulic fracturing, better known as fracking, to get at it.
Photos on social media show some of the arrests, including one that appears to be a man holding a sacred pipe, with his hands in plastic cuffs.
![Susanne Patles in prayer, as New Brunswick RCMP confer. [Photo: M. Howe]](https://www.tulalipnews.com/wp/wp-content/uploads/2013/06/img_7549.jpg)
By Miles Howe, Halifax Media Co-op
ELSIPOGTOG, NEW BRUNSWICK, CANADA – About 25 RCMP officers in uniform, along with about a dozen police cruisers, today continued to flank equipment owned by gas exploration company SWN Resources Canada as they proceeded with their seismic testing of highway 126 in Kent County, New Brunswick.
Pushing the scattered crowd of Indigenous and non-Indigenous people back “50 metres distance” from the southward approaching seismic trucks – or ‘thumpers’ – the RCMP first arrested one demonstrator and chased another into the woods before arresting Susanne Patles.
Patles, a Mi’kmaq woman, had scattered a line of tobacco between herself and the approaching police, then proceeded to draw a circle of tobacco in the highway, where she then knelt and began to pray. After about two minutes, the police proceeded to arrest Patles. An officer Bernard noted that she was being charged with mischief.
Today’s two arrests follow another three made last Wednesday, when people again placed themselves in the path of SWN’s thumpers. Residents fear that the tests will lead to hydraulic fracturing – or fracking – of the area.
Lorraine Clair, arrested on Wednesday, continues to recover from nerve damage suffered from the rough treatment handed down on her by RCMP officers.
