Tag Archives: Protest

Women in U.S. plan to stay off the job, rally in anti-Trump protests

People listen to speakers in the rain at a rally for International Women's Day in Los Angeles, California, U.S., March 5, 2017. REUTERS/Lucy Nicholson

By Peter A Szekely

NEW YORK (Reuters) – Women in the United States plan to use International Women’s Day on Wednesday to stay off the job and stage demonstrations across the country in an effort to seize on the momentum built from the massive marches held a day after President Donald Trump’s inauguration.

On “A Day Without a Woman,” those who are able to do so will stay away from work or school, much as immigrants did on Feb. 16 to protest Trump’s immigration policies.

All are part of the series of anti-Trump demonstrations that have taken place since the day after his Nov. 8 election.

Objectives of Wednesday’s events include calling attention to the gender pay gap in which women trail men, and deregulating reproductive rights.

“For years and years, March 8 has been International Women’s Day, and it has been a happy, happy day, which is fine,” said Terry O’Neill, president of the National Organization for Women. “But the political climate that we find ourselves in right now requires us to have political power.”

Demonstrations will target a Trump “gag order” that bars foreign health providers receiving U.S. funds from raising abortion as an option, O’Neill said.

Early Wednesday morning, Trump urged others via his personal Twitter account to join him in honoring the critical role of women in America and around the world.

“I have tremendous respect for women and the many roles they serve that are vital to the fabric of our society and our economy,” the Republican president wrote (@realDonaldTrump).

Trump has been heavily criticized for his inflammatory comments when discussing women, including his boast in a 2005 video about grabbing women by the genitals, and referring to Democratic rival Hillary Clinton as a “nasty woman” during a presidential debate.

American women on average earn 79 cents for every $1 that men make, and African-American and Latina women make even less, O’Neill said. Since women account for two-thirds of all minimum wage workers, lifting the hourly wage would significantly narrow the pay gap, she said.

The minimum wage has been stuck at $7.25 at the federal level since 2009, although it is higher in many states.

Organizers are attempting to repeat tactics from the Jan. 21 women’s march on Washington and other cities that came together largely through social media.

Women make up 47 percent of the U.S. civilian labor force. If all of them stayed out of work for the day, it would knock almost $21 billion of the country’s gross domestic product, the liberal leaning Center for American Progress estimated.

Organizers, however, realize that many women lack the motivation or cannot afford to take a day off and are urging women to limit their shopping to female-owned businesses or to wear red.

Several schools, including at least two sizeable school districts in Virginia and North Carolina, have canceled classes because a large number of teachers requested the day off.

Rallies are planned in cities across the country, including Washington, New York, Atlanta, St. Petersburg, Florida, Chicago, San Francisco and Berkeley, California.

(Reporting by Peter Szekely; Editing by Daniel Trotta and Lisa Shumaker)

Italian farmers bring sheep to Rome to protest quake response

A sheep is seen in front of the Montecitorio Palace during a protest held by farmers from the earthquake zones of Amatrice, in Rome, Italy March 7, 2017. REUTERS/Max Rossi

ROME (Reuters) – Italian farmers from regions ravaged by earthquakes brought sheep to central Rome on Tuesday to protest what they say are serious delays in reconstruction efforts.

More than 10,000 farm animals have been killed or injured by quake damage and subsequent freezing weather, farmers’ association Coldiretti said.

Outside parliament, a makeshift paddock housed three sheep rescued from areas struck by tremors while farmers waved flags and banners reading “Bureaucracy is more deadly than earthquakes”.

Thousands of farming businesses are housed in the central regions of Lazio, Marche, Abruzzo and Umbria where tremors have rumbled since August.

Prime Minister Paolo Gentiloni has approved a draft law to help people affected by the quakes, including 35 million euros ($37 million) to compensate farmers for lost income.

The law also aims to make it easier for regional governments to buy temporary stalls. Farmers say about 85 percent of their livestock need shelter.

“Breeders still don’t know where to put their surviving cows, pigs and sheep, which are either stuck out in the cold, at risk of death and disease, or in derelict buildings,” the farm association said.

Stress caused by cold and fear has reduced milk production in the region by 30 percent. Local crops like lentils are also at risk as seeds cannot be sown on fractured land, it added.

The agriculture ministry said the process of releasing emergency funds to farmers was under way.

($1 = 0.9458 euros)

(Reporting by Isla Binnie; Editing by Julia Glover)

Dakota protesters regroup, plot resistance to other pipelines

A man warms up by a fire in Sacred Stone camp, one of the few remaining camps protesting the Dakota Access Pipeline in Cannon Ball, North Dakota, U.S., February 24, 2017. REUTERS/Stephen Yang

By Terray Sylvester

CANNON BALL, N.D. (Reuters) – Opponents of the Dakota Access Pipeline who were pushed out of their protest camp this week have vowed to keep up efforts to stop the multibillion-dollar project and take the fight to other pipelines as well.

The Oceti Sakowin camp in Cannon Ball, North Dakota, was cleared by law enforcement on Thursday and almost 50 people, many of them Native Americans and environmental activists, were arrested.

The number of demonstrators had dwindled from the thousands who poured into the camp starting in August to oppose the pipeline that critics say threatens the water resources and sacred land of the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe. The tribe has said it intends to fight the pipeline in court.

The 1,170-mile (1,885 km) line, built by Energy Transfer Partners LP, will move crude from the shale oilfields of North Dakota to Illinois en route to the Gulf of Mexico, where many U.S. refineries are located.

Tonya Olsen, 46, an Ihanktonwan Sioux from Sioux Falls, South Dakota, who had lived at the camp for 3-1/2 months, said she was saddened by the eviction but proud of the protesters.

She has moved to another nearby camp on Standing Rock Sioux Tribe reservation land, across the Cannon Ball River.

“A lot of people will take what they’ve learned from this movement and take it to another one,” Olsen said. She may join a protest if one forms against the Keystone XL pipeline near the Lower Brulé Sioux Reservation in South Dakota, she added.

Tom Goldtooth, a protest leader and executive director of the Indigenous Environmental Network, said the demonstrators’ hearts were not defeated.

“The closing of the camp is not the end of a movement or fight, it is a new beginning,” Goldtooth said in a statement on Thursday. “They cannot extinguish the fire that Standing Rock started.”

Many hope their fight against the project will spur similar protests targeting pipelines across the United States and Canada, particularly those routed near Native American land.

“The embers are going to be carried all over the place,” said Forest Borie, 34, a protester from Tijuana, Mexico, who spent four months in North Dakota.

“This is going to be a revolutionary year,” he added.

NEXT TARGETS

Borie wants to go next to Canada to help the Unist’ot’en Native American Tribe in their long-running opposition to pipelines in British Columbia.

Energy Transfer Partners, the Dallas-based company constructing the Dakota Access pipeline, is already facing pushback from a diverse base of opposition in Louisiana, where it is planning to expand its Bayou Bridge pipeline.

Other projects mentioned by protesters as possible next stops include the Sabal Trail pipeline being built to transport natural gas from eastern Alabama to central Florida, and Energy Transfer Partners’ Trans-Pecos in West Texas. Sabal Trail is a joint project of Spectra Energy Corp, NextEra Energy Inc and Duke Energy Corp.

Another protest is focused on Plains All American Pipeline’s Diamond Pipeline, which will run from Cushing, Oklahoma, to Valero Energy Corp’s Memphis refinery in Tennessee.

Anthony Gazotti, 47, from Denver, said he will stay on reservation land until he is forced out. Despite construction resuming on the Dakota pipeline, he said the protest was a success because it had raised awareness of pipeline issues nationwide.

“It’s never been about just stopping that pipeline,” he said.

June Sapiel, a 47-year-old member of the Penobscot Tribe in Penobscot, Maine, also rejected the idea that the protesters in North Dakota had failed.

“It’s waking people up,” she said in front of a friend’s yurt where she has been staying. “We’re going to go out there and just keep doing it.”

(Additional reporting by Timothy Mclaughlin in Chicago and Liz Hampton in Houston; Writing by Ben Klayman; Editing by Matthew Lewis)

South African police break up anti-immigrant protests

Somali nationals argue with police during clashes in Pretoria, South Africa, February 24, 2017. REUTERS/ James Oatway

By TJ Strydom

PRETORIA (Reuters) – South African police fired tear gas, water cannon and rubber bullets to disperse rival marches by hundreds of protesters in Pretoria on Friday, after mobs looted stores this week believed to belong to immigrants.

Anti-immigrant violence has flared sporadically in South Africa against a background of near-record unemployment, with foreigners being accused of taking jobs from citizens and involvement in crime.

Armed police had formed a barrier between rival crowds of citizens and non-nationals marching in Pretoria, but both sides began shouting at one another and brandishing rocks and sticks, prompting police to disperse the angry mobs.

Shops were shuttered in Marabastad, an area of western Pretoria where many foreign nationals have their stores, and roads were blocked as the marchers gathered. Some of the foreigners carried rocks and sticks, saying they were ready to protect their stores.

One Somali shopowner, 37, said he feared for his life. “My shops get looted a few times a year,” he said.

The marches follow the looting this week of at least 20 small businesses believed to belong to Nigerian and Pakistani immigrants. Residents said they had attacked the shops because they were dens of prostitution and drug dealing. Some said they had lost jobs to the foreigners.

A 34-year old South African, who declined to be named, said a Zimbabwean took his job at a manufacturing plant because he was willing to work for less.

“The police must leave us alone so we can sort them out,” he said, pointing at a group of foreign shop owners.

Random acts of violence, looting and destruction of property had occurred, Acting National Police Commissioner Khomotso Phahlane said.

“Over 24-hour period, 156 have been arrested,” Phahlane told a news conference, and “those inciting violence will face prosecution.” It was unclear how many of those in custody were South Africans and how many foreigners.

President Jacob Zuma condemned acts of violence between citizens and non-nationals, his office said in a statement on Friday. Zuma appealed to citizens not to blame all crime on non-nationals.

Home Affairs Minister Malusi Gigaba on Thursday acknowledged violence had flared up against foreigners this year, adding that “unfortunately, xenophobic violence is not new in South Africa.”

In retaliation, Nigerian protesters vandalized the head office of South African mobile phone company MTN in Abuja on Thursday.

Earlier this week, Nigeria’s foreign ministry said it would summon South Africa’s envoy to raise its concerns over “xenophobic attacks” on Nigerians, other Africans and Pakistanis.

(Writing by James Macharia, editing by Larry King)

One month in, anti-Trump movement shows signs of sustained momentum

A man reacts outside of The Stonewall Inn during a protest against the Trump administration's move to rescind guidance allowing transgender students to use the bathrooms of their choice, in Manhattan, New York, U.S., February 23, 2017. REUTERS/Bria Webb

By Joseph Ax and Emily Stephenson

BRANCHBURG, N.J./VIRGINIA BEACH, Va. (Reuters) – U.S. Representative Leonard Lance, who has held more than 40 town hall-style meetings with constituents in his central New Jersey district, has never faced a crowd like he did on Wednesday.

The Republican endured catcalls, chants and caustic questions from more than 1,000 residents at a local college, while hundreds of others outside brandished signs with messages like “Resist Trump.”

Parallel scenes have played out across the country this week during the first congressional recess since Donald Trump became president. Republican lawmakers returning home confronted a wave of anger over a spectrum of issues, including immigration, healthcare and Trump’s possible ties to Russia.

The raucous meetings are the latest in a relentless series of rallies, marches and protests that shows no signs of abating more than 30 days into the new administration.

The anti-Trump energy has prompted talk of a liberal-style Tea Party movement, in reference to the protests in 2009 that helped reshape the Republican Party and arguably laid the groundwork for Trump’s surprise electoral victory last year.

“Some of the lessons to draw from that are persistence, repetition, not taking ‘no’ for an answer,” said Victoria Kaplan, the organizing director for the grassroots progressive group MoveOn.

Since the day after Trump’s inauguration, when millions of protesters joined women’s marches worldwide, left-wing organizers have sought to harness that anger to fuel a lasting political campaign.

Hundreds of progressive groups have sprung up across the country – some affiliated with national organizations like Indivisible or MoveOn – to help coordinate.

At town halls in New Jersey and Virginia this week, constituents came armed with red “disagree” signs they held aloft to register their disapproval of what they heard from their representatives.

Some U.S. senators, such as Pat Toomey, Republican of Pennsylvania, have faced weekly protests outside their offices, and a Pennsylvania healthcare network set up a “town hall” this week with an empty suit in place of Toomey, who declined to attend.

More marches are scheduled across the country in the coming months, including several major events in Washington, tied to gay rights, science and a push for Trump to release his tax returns.

The sheer volume of protests – last week, there were three nationwide calls for action within a five-day span – has some political observers wondering how long it can last.

But several experts who study protests said the level of outrage may be increasing, rather than subsiding, after a tumultuous first month in which Trump’s words and actions created fresh outrage among liberals almost daily.

“We’re not anywhere near reaching a saturation point for protest,” said Michael Heaney, the author of “Party in the Street: The Antiwar Movement and the Democratic Party after 9/11” and a University of Michigan professor. “If anything, it’s just getting started.”

The key for organizers is to convert large-scale protests into sustained action by building databases of names and encouraging locally based events, experts said.

“You can’t just have the diehards,” said Dana R. Fisher, a University of Maryland professor who studies collective action. “And then you need to channel them into new types of activism.”

When Fisher surveyed participants at the women’s march in Washington, she found one-third were attending their first protest – the highest percentage she has ever observed.

“This is unprecedented,” she said. “But there’s nothing that’s not unprecedented about the Trump presidency.”

Some Republicans have dismissed the protests as manufactured. Trump on Tuesday tweeted that “so-called angry crowds” in Republicans’ districts were “planned out by liberal activists.”

But Kaplan of MoveOn said the vast majority of actions were “organic.” A weekly conference call the group hosts to discuss the movement has attracted a bigger number of participants each week, with 46,000 people joining the latest discussion.

“We are firing on all cylinders to catch up” with grassroots protests, she said. “That is a demonstration of energy and sustainability.”

Experts also said social media has made it far easier to organize mass protests quickly and efficiently.

In what Kaplan said was a sign the protests are having an impact, many Republicans have eschewed town halls this week to avoid confrontations. There were fewer than 100 in-person Republican town halls scheduled for the first two months of the year, compared with more than 200 in the same period in 2015, according to a Vice report.

In Louisiana on Wednesday, residents shouted down Republican Senator Bill Cassidy as he tried to explain his healthcare proposal. Scott Taylor, a freshman Republican representative in Virginia, sparred with hundreds of impassioned constituents on Monday at his own event.

Like Lance, whose district voted for Hillary Clinton over Trump, Taylor is already a midterm target for Democrats. Taylor said in an interview after the town hall that he recognized many of the attendees from the local Democratic Party.

“It’s not like they’re just some new organic people who just came about and are concerned,” Taylor said.

But not everyone was a Democrat. Austin Phillips, a 22-year-old Trump voter, told Taylor at the town hall he was worried about losing healthcare coverage if Obamacare is repealed.

“Trump has talked about wanting to repeal it,” Phillips, who is self-employed and purchased insurance through an exchange created by the law, said in a later interview. “If they quickly repeal it with no replacement lined up, then theoretically everybody would lose their insurance.”

(Additional reporting by Steve Bittenbender in Louisville, Kentucky; editing by Frank McGurty and Jonathan Oatis)

Dakota pipeline protest camp nearly empty as holdouts face removal

Buildings burn after being set alight by protesters preparing to evacuate the main opposition camp against the Dakota Access oil pipeline near Cannon Ball, North Dakota, U.S., February 22, 2017. REUTERS/Terray Sylvester

By Terray Sylvester

CANNON BALL, N.D. (Reuters) – All but a few dozen of the last holdouts from a months-long mass protest against a proposed oil pipeline in North Dakota peacefully vacated their riverside camp as an eviction deadline passed on Wednesday.

“We’ve very firm that the camp is now closed,” Governor Doug Burgum, a Republican, told an evening news conference.

Following Wednesday’s exodus, Burgum estimated there were 25 to 50 protesters left. He said they were still free to leave voluntarily so long as they did not interfere with cleanup crews scheduled to enter the site at 9 a.m. on Thursday.

The encampment has stood since August on U.S. Army Corps of Engineers property at the edge of the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation near Cannon Ball, North Dakota, about 40 miles south of Bismarck, the state capital.

Protesters calling themselves “water protectors” have rallied there against plans to route the Dakota Access Pipeline beneath a lake near the reservation, saying the project poses a threat to water resources and sacred tribal sites.

Dubbed the Oceti Sakowin camp, the site became a focal point for U.S. environmental activists and Native Americans expressing indigenous rights, drawing some 5,000 to 10,000 protesters at the height of the movement in early December.

Most have drifted since away, as tribal leaders urged people to leave due to harsh winter weather, while pressing their opposition to the pipeline in court. Roughly 300 demonstrators had remained until this week.

Protesters and police have clashed multiple times since August, with more than 700 arrests tallied.

On Wednesday authorities appeared intent on avoiding clashes, though 10 arrests were made as protesters confronted police in riot gear on a highway outside the camp entrance before the officers retreated around nightfall.

President Donald Trump has pushed for completion of the pipeline since he took office last month, signing an executive order that reversed an Obama administration decision and cleared the way for the $3.8 billion project to proceed.

Two tribes earlier this month lost a legal bid to halt construction. The pipeline is due to be complete and ready for oil by April 1, according to court documents filed Tuesday.

DEADLINE ON THE RIVER

Burgum and the Army Corps of Engineers had set Wednesday’s deadline for protesters to leave, citing hazards posed by impending spring floods along the Cannonball River.

The governor said the handful of demonstrators who remained needed to make way for crews set to expand a cleanup that began weeks ago to remove mounds of garbage, debris, human waste and dozens of abandoned vehicles.

At least three dozen protesters could be seen gathering near the camp entrance as the afternoon eviction deadline passed, and a few dozen others were believed lingering elsewhere at the site. Some vowed to stay put.

“I feel as though now is the time to stand our ground,” said Alethea Phillips, 17, a demonstrator from Michigan who had spent three months at the camp.

Chase Iron Eyes, a Standing Rock Sioux member, said closing the camp would not dampen his determination.

“You can’t arrest a movement. You can’t arrest a spiritual revolution,” he said.

Activists set off fireworks on Wednesday morning, and as freezing rain and snow fell, some demonstrators ceremonially burned tents and other structures at the camp.

State officials said protesters had set about 20 fires, and that two youngsters – a 7-year-old boy and a 17-year-old girl – were taken to a Bismarck hospital for burns after two explosions occurred, the governor said.

Authorities have set up an assistance center to provide departing protesters with food, water and medical check-ups, as well as a voucher for one night’s hotel stay and a bus ride home.

(Reporting by Terray Sylvester in Cannon Ball, North Dakota and Timothy Mclaughlin in Chicago; Writing by Steve Gorman; Editing by Diane Craft and Simon Cameron-Moore)

Police arrest 24 in California protest over off-duty officer shooting

(Reuters) – Two dozen people were arrested in Anaheim, California, during a protest calling for the arrest of an off-duty Los Angeles police officer who fired a gun during a scuffle with a teenager outside of his Anaheim home, police said on Thursday.

Nobody was wounded in the shooting incident, which occurred on Tuesday, local media reported.

Some of the 300 protesters threw rocks at police officers in riot gear, kicked squad cars and blocked intersections as they marched and chanted “hands up, don’t shoot” and “whose streets, our streets” on Wednesday night, the Los Angeles Times reported.

Some 24 people were arrested and face misdemeanor charges including failure to disperse, the Anaheim Police Department said on social media early on Thursday.

The incident that ignited the protest was captured on a cell phone video that appeared to show a man holding a teenager’s collar as they scuffled with each other in front of a house in a residential neighborhood.

The video, which was circulated on social media and local news, then showed a teenager tackling the man into a line of shrubs and then another teenager punching him.

As several young people began surrounding the man, who still had a hold of the teenager’s collar, he pulled a gun out of his waistband and fired it once, the footage showed.

A 13-year-old and 15-year-old were arrested after the incident, the Los Angeles Times reported.

The identities of the teenagers who were arrested and the officer have not been made public. The incident comes amid a national debate over the role of law enforcement officers and their use of sometimes deadly force against minorities.

The Los Angeles Police Department has placed the officer on administrative leave as it investigates the incident and reviews the video, the department said in a statement.

The confrontation began with “ongoing issues” involving a group of juveniles walking on the lawn of a Los Angeles Police Department officer’s home in Anaheim, police told the Times.

“The videos posted online do not depict the entire event,” the Anaheim Police Department said on Facebook.

(Reporting by Brendan O’Brien in Milwaukee; Editing by Gareth Jones)

French police clash with youths at protest rally, arrest eight

Clouds of tear gas surround youths as they face off with French police during a demonstration against police brutality after a young black man, 22-year-old youth worker named Theo, was severely injured during his arrest earlier this month, in Paris, France, February 23, 2017. REUTERS/Gonzalo Fuentes

PARIS (Reuters) – Hundreds of French high-school students staged an unauthorized anti-police rally on Thursday, blocking the entrances to a dozen schools in Paris in the latest in a series of protests over the alleged rape of a young black man with a police baton.

Police reported eight arrests after isolated skirmishes with youths who hurled objects and damaged property on the fringes of what otherwise appeared to have been a relatively peaceful demonstration.

The protest comes two months before a presidential election where far-right leader Marine Le Pen, leader of the anti-immigrant National Front party, is tipped to win the first round but lose the runoff vote that takes place on May 7.

The Paris school authority said more than 10 schools had been targeted by youths who piled up rubbish bins and other objects at the entrance gates. In one case, a deputy school director was injured when protesters hurled a fire extinguisher.

The protesters are angry over the alleged rape of the 22-year-old man during a Feb. 2 arrest in an area north of Paris where large numbers of immigrants live. The man, identified only as Theo, remains in hospital with injuries to his anus and head.

He has called for public calm and his family has said they have faith in the French justice system.

One of the banners carried at Thursday’s rally read “Revenge for Theo!”

Social media networks showed signs of skirmishes on the fringes of the rally in the Place de la Nation square in the east of Paris, where riot police in protective gear advanced on groups of mostly-hooded youths in sidestreet confrontations.

A helicopter flew overhead and tear gas clouds rose into the air above that square toward the end of the rally.

The Paris police department had warned people to stay away from the protest, saying it was not authorized and that there was a risk of violent groups causing trouble, as happened over the last three weeks.

Four police officers have been suspended pending an inquiry into the Feb. 2 incident. One has been placed under formal investigation for suspected rape and three others for unnecessary use of force.

So far the protests have not snowballed to the extent of the unrest that 12 years ago drew global attention to the stark contrast between wealthy Paris and the suburbs that surround it.

(Writing by Brian Love; additional reporting by Gerard Bon and Jean-Baptiste Vey; Editing by Gareth Jones)

Ukrainian right-wing groups stage anti-government rally in Kiev

Activists of nationalist groups and their supporters take part in the so-called March of Dignity, marking the third anniversary of the 2014 Ukrainian pro-European Union (EU) mass protests, in Kiev, Ukraine, February 22, 2017. REUTERS/Valentyn Ogirenko

KIEV (Reuters) – A few thousand Ukrainians rallied on Wednesday to demand a change of political leadership in a demonstration that coincided with the third anniversary of the ousting of pro-Russian president Viktor Yanukovich amid mass street protests.

The rally was organized by three right-wing parties who accuse the government of being too weak and conciliatory in the face of Russia’s annexation of Ukraine’s Crimea region and its support for pro-Russian separatists in the east of the country.

The crowd chanted “Glory to Ukraine!” and carried banners with slogans such as “The government should fight (Russian President Vladimir) Putin, not Ukrainians.”

Kiev resident Vasyl Volskiy said he was taking part in the demonstration because he believed the authorities had failed to deliver on promises to reform the economy.

“There has been no improvement, it has even become worse compared to what it used to be. The army still has no resources, just like before. People have become three times poorer and the authorities are not doing anything,” he said.

None of the three groups behind the rally – the nationalist Svoboda (Freedom) party, the far-right Right Sector and the newly formed National Corps party founded by members of the Azov battalion – are currently represented in parliament.

Yanukovich has lived in exile in Russia since fleeing Ukraine on Feb. 22, 2014. His successor, Petro Poroshenko, has tried to move Ukraine towards the European Union but the country is still dogged by poverty and corruption, and the conflict in eastern Ukraine remains unresolved.

Ukrainians are also now concerned that U.S. President Donald Trump may roll back sanctions imposed on Russia over its actions in Ukraine.

(Reporting by Margaryta Chornokondratenko; Writing by Alessandra Prentice; Editing by Gareth Jones)

Showdown looms for protesters near site of Dakota Access pipeline

Tipis are seen on the outskirts of the protest camp. REUTERS/Terray Sylvester

By Terray Sylvester

CANNON BALL, N.D. (Reuters) – Demonstrators near the site of the Dakota Access pipeline braced for a showdown with authorities on Wednesday, as protest leaders said at least some would defy a deadline to abandon the camp they have occupied for months to halt the project.

Native Americans and environmental activists have said the multibillion-dollar pipeline threatens the water resources and sacred land of the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe, but President Donald Trump has quickly pushed for the completion of the pipeline since taking office last month.

Governor Doug Burgum and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers set a deadline of Wednesday afternoon for demonstrators to leave the Oceti Sakowin camp, located on Army Corps land in Cannon Ball, North Dakota.

Despite the deadline, some will remain, camp leaders said on Tuesday.

“Everybody plans to be in camp tomorrow up until the 2 o’clock mark. Then people will make their individual decisions about what their level of commitment is,” Chase Iron Eyes, a member of the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe, said by telephone. “Some will get arrested.”

Protesters and law enforcement have clashed multiple times and hundreds have been arrested since demonstrations began in August.

The Standing Rock Sioux asked protesters to depart from the site in December as they continued to fight the pipeline in court, but some 300 demonstrators have remained.

Law enforcement officials were urging people to leave the camp ahead of Wednesday’s deadline and remove anything that could be damaged during cleanup efforts.

“We really would like them (protesters) to get the culturally sensitive items out so when they bulldoze and clean out the camp they aren’t dealing with any of those things,” said Maxine Herr, a spokeswoman for the Morton County Sheriff’s Department.

Just days after taking office in January, Trump, a Republican, signed an executive order clearing the way for the $3.8 billion pipeline to proceed.

A judge denied a request earlier this month by two tribes seeking to halt construction, which resumed. The tribes are seeking an injunction to order the Army Corps to withdraw the easement.

Burgum, a Republican, has warned that spring floods pose a threat to the remaining protesters as well as the waters of the Missouri River.

Over 200 dumpsters of debris has been removed from the site since cleanup efforts began last month, said Mike Nowatzki, a spokesman for the governor.

(Reporting by Terray Sylvester in Cannon Ball, North Dakota and Timothy Mclaughlin in Chicago; Editing by Tom Brown)