Two University of Northern B.C. students had already started the trek back to North Dakota to face their criminal charges when they learned over the weekend the felony had been dropped.
Nicole Schafenacker and Katriona Siloen Auerbach are no longer facing the most serious of three charges - conspiracy to endanger with fire - their professor Sarah de Leeuw said Monday. The two graduate students were arrested Oct. 27 with 139 others protesting Dakota Access oil pipeline with the Standing Rock Sioux.
"We are all totally ecstatic," she said. "They are over-the-top happy."
While de Leeuw said the relief is visible when she speaks with her students, the two misdemeanor charges - engaging in a riot and public nuisance - still carry the chance of jail time.
"It's not gone," she said. "Those are continuing to hang over Nicole and Katriona's futures."
The graduate students got word over the weekend from their court-appointed lawyer, de Leeuw said. The two are in Vancouver and will come back to Prince George Tuesday now that they don't need to make a Dec. 5 court date. De Leeuw said the two don't know when they're scheduled for court on the outstanding charges, but they expect it will be in the new year.
De Leeuw said she sees the felony charge, which carried up to seven years in prison, as a scare tactic to intimidate protesters.
“With the light that’s currently being shone on the Standing Rock … it probably doesn't come as any surprise that we see very aggressive charges.”
She said she’s been video chatting with them over Facetime and texting and in constant contact with the women and she witnessed the phsyical relief when they both learned the criminal charge was gone.
“Now that they’re back in Canada and I’m in daily contact with them… the relief associated with the most serious charge being dropped was palpable.”
While she said she can’t speak for them, she said they are thankful for the community support.
“I think they feel intensely embraced and supported and valued. I think they feel part of a very large and socially just movement,” she said. “I think they continue to feel unequivocally that going there was, is the right thing. Standing with Standing Rock was the right thing to do.”
Schafenacker or Auerbach said by email they wouldn't be able to comment until getting the go-ahead from legal counsel.
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has set an early December deadline for protesters to leave the encampment where tribes including the Standing Rock and Cheyenne River Sioux have been fighting the Dakota Access project because they fear it will harm drinking water and Native American cultural sites.
- with files from Associated Press
