Organizers of a series of rallies this week against the Enbridge Line 3 pipeline project are decrying elevated security measures underway at the State Capitol, calling it a militarized response to peaceful demonstrations.
State officials last weekend reinstalled a fence perimeter around the Capitol and visibly expanded the presence of state troopers at levels not seen there since the immediate aftermath of January's deadly U.S. Capitol siege.
In calling for the fence's return and ramping up the police presence, Department of Public Safety officials cited the likelihood that thousands of people planned to gather at the Capitol complex this week.
Organizers for the Treaties Not Tar Sands demonstrations at the Capitol have planned a series of events that started Monday and will be highlighted by a Wednesday rally calling on Gov. Tim Walz and President Joe Biden to stop the Enbridge Line 3 pipeline from moving tar sands oil from Canada through Minnesota to Superior, Wis.
The organizers said that water protectors — activists who oppose projects and policies that they believe harm water systems — also planned to "hold space and camp out on the Capitol lawn" on the evening after the rally.
On Tuesday, the group described the fence and police presence as an "excessive and harsh response to the ceremony and art unfolding on the lawn."
"We're here at the Capitol for the land, for the water, and for our treaty rights," said Nancy Beaulieu, one of the event's lead organizers. "We've come in a peaceful way. For the grandmas to be met with fencing and so many law enforcement officials, as they sit on the lawn in ceremony, doesn't feel right.
"We are all treaty people, and for the state government of Minnesota to respond to us as sovereign people in this way, with a dividing fence, doesn't make them very good treaty partners."
