Samis block Norway govt workplaces over unlawful wind farms
by AFP Employees Writers
Oslo (AFP) Oct 13, 2023
Indigenous Sami activists and environmentalists together with Greta Thunberg blocked the entrances to a number of ministries in Oslo for a number of hours on Friday to demand the demolition of wind farms working illegally for 2 years.
On the third day of protests in opposition to the 151 generators constructed on Sami reindeer herding land within the Fosen area in western Norway, dozens of activists, many wearing conventional Sami clothes, sat exterior the entrances of a number of ministries and known as for the demolition of the wind parks.
On October 11, 2021, Norway’s Supreme Court docket discovered that the wind farms violated the rights of the indigenous individuals, assured by the UN, to practise their tradition of reindeer husbandry.
Whereas the Supreme Court docket discovered that the expropriation and working permits for the development of the generators have been invalid, it gave no steerage on what ought to be completed with the generators, which have been already in operation.
Sami activists have held protests on symbolic dates because the Supreme Court docket’s ruling.
“It is shameful … that systematic colonisation, violation of human rights and oppression stay a actuality for the Sami individuals at present,” Thunberg mentioned Thursday at a protest blocking the doorway to the headquarters of Norway’s state-owned power group Statkraft.
On Friday, police eliminated with out incident a gaggle of activists blocking the entrances to a number of ministries, after which the protesters left all of the ministries.
Norway’s authorities has apologised to Sami reindeer herding households and recognised that their human rights have been violated.
It has launched a mediation course of to attempt to discover a resolution enabling each the herders and wind farms to proceed their actions.
Petroleum and Vitality Minister Terje Aasland mentioned Wednesday “the destruction of all wind generators was excluded” and “not a probable end result” of a mediation course of.
The end result may set a precedent for different infrastructure tasks on the huge lands historically utilized by the Sami throughout Norway.
An indigenous minority of round 100,000 individuals unfold over the northern components of Norway, Sweden, Finland and Russia, the Sami have historically lived off reindeer herding and fishing.
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