Cante Tenza Okolakiciye – Strong Heart Warrior Society

MEDIA RELEASE: July 3, 2015 – FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Contact: Strong Heart Media lead – Naomi Archer 631-626-5842 and Email: cantetenza13@gmail.com

LAKOTA WARRIOR LEADER ARRESTED 48 HOURS AFTER FILING EMERGENCY INJUNCTION TO STOP RAINBOW GATHERING; SIMILAR RETALIATION HAS OCCURRED PREVIOUSLY

Updated 4:20pm MST: Canupa is free and resting. Thanks to the media and others who called in and prevented the Sheriff’s office from sitting on his processing and keeping him over the weekend. “Plain and simple, this was a setup,” Canupa Gluha Mani said.



Updated 2:43pm MST: We are told Canupa will be released after 4:00pm. Bail has been paid.



Black Hills– Lakota activist and Strong Heart Warrior leader Canupa Gluha Mani was arrested Friday afternoon by the Pennington County Sherriff’s Office in retaliation for his leadership in protecting his people from the Rainbow Gathering in the sacred Black Hills.

Less than 48 hours ago, Canupa filed an Emergency Injunction in Rapid City Federal Court to force the U.S. Forest Service and other State and local agencies to remove the Rainbow Gathering from unceded Lakota Territory based on International law and U.S. treaty law. Pennington County Sheriff’s Office – arresting agency – was one of the Defendant’s named in the emergency appeal.

The alleged charges, failure to pay child support, have been used in previous retaliatory actions against Canupa on Pine Ridge and have been proven false in those cases.

In 2011, similar retaliation against the high profile Lakota activist forced the Department of Justice Office of Tribal Justice (DOJ) to censure the Oglala Sioux Tribe (OST) and President John Yellow Bird Steele. Steele was recently re-elected as OST President.

The Oglala Sioux Tribe had the warrior leader falsely arrested and held against his will for twenty one (21) days in retaliation for his support of Lakota elders during the thirty-four day (34) day 2011 Elderly Meals Takeover.

He was also falsely arrested and held for 24 hours immediately before the December 31, 2011 Strong Heart Blockade of alcohol sales in White Clay, Nebraska earning the DOJ rebuke.

Strong Heart notes the arrest is occurring on Friday afternoon and before the long 4th of July holiday, in order to keep the Lakota activist in jail over the weekend and preemptively keep him from protesting the gathering during the weekend’s highest attendance. Strong Heart notes OST President John Yellow Bird Steele has welcomed the Rainbow gathering despite their history of rampant drug use, increasing violence, and desecration of sacred places.

Because of his high profile activism, Canupa is routinely interacting with law enforcement from local, State, and Federal agencies. Law enforcement officers have visited the International Treaty Defenders camp in opposition to the Rainbow Gathering numerous times since the gathering began to be organized near Deerfield Lake.

Only now – 48 hours after filing the Emergency Injunction against government agencies –does this arrest occur

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