I didn't go out on Mill Hill nature adventure as planned. Got unexpected sad news from my friend, Marco.
My beloved adopted Dakota warrior sister, fierce fellow frontlines disabled comrade, and treasured kindred friend - Lady Chainsaw - passed away in Vancouver hospital, around 9am, this morning. I found out a few hours ago & am crying. Going out to a special place, to do a fire ceremony to honour her life.
A few months before me & Lady Chainsaw (Kat) met to go & do remote frontlines work together, she was arrested for trying to help the #Wetsuweten blockade against #CGL.
Molly Wickham & her kids, showed support, while Kat was locked up. She was released shortly after.
The defense for three activists from #FirstNations argues abuse of process by security forces around the pipeline construction site, as the U.N. and Amnesty International allege excessive force, surveillance and #criminalization of land defenders.
By Keerti Gopal
January 24, 2024
"The trial of three Indigenous land defenders arrested at a pipeline construction site on #unceded#Wetsuweten First Nation land was adjourned until spring on Friday, as the court looks into potential abuses by Canadian police.
"In the Supreme Court of British Columbia in Smithers, B.C., the trial is the latest development in the nearly 12-year fight against the Coastal GasLink natural gas pipeline in the Canadian province.
"Land defenders #Sleydo’ #MollyWickham, #ShayLynnSampson and #CoreyJocko were found guilty of criminal contempt earlier this month, with Justice Michael Tanmen ruling that they broke a court injunction forbidding them from blocking access to construction for the Coastal GasLink pipeline.
"But immediately following the verdict, Tanmen began a week-long hearing to listen to the three individuals’ abuse of process applications, which allege that their Charter rights were violated during their arrests and detentions. During the hearing, the defense argued to stay the charges based on these applications, citing excessive force, aggressive behavior, offensive language and mocking by police.
"In Canada, the abuse of process doctrine allows courts to stay, or postpone, a proceeding on the grounds that some element of the process was unfair, and might undermine the legal system. In this case, the abuse of process application focused on treatment during and after arrests.
"The trial began on Jan. 8 and consisted mainly of witness testimony and evidence gathered in November 2021, during one of four major police raids at the pipeline between 2019 and 2023. The evidence included videos from social media and other videos taken by officers from the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, Canada’s national police service.
"The videos, and testimony from witnesses, including #RCMP officers, detailed the police using dogs and firearms and wielding chainsaws to cut down the doors of a cabin where Sleydo’ and Sampson were arrested. Jocko was arrested in another small structure close by.
"The activists allege police used excessive force to break down the doors and used offensive language, showing videos in which officers described arrestees as 'orcs' and 'ogres.' The abuse of process hearing will likely restart in June.
"Chief Na’Moks, a Wet’suwet’en Hereditary Chief and prominent advocate against the pipeline, said that the trial may serve as a template for future legal battles across Canada, where several other pipeline projects are underway.
"'This is going to affect everything else that happens, not only in #BritishColumbia but in #Canada,' Chief Na’Moks said last week. “This is the template that they want to use...and the harassment and constant abuse of #HumanRights has to stop.”
Even while it gives land acknowledgments and takes Truth and Reconciliation Day off with pay, the Canadian government is actively invading foreign nations on the regular. The RCMP has always been used to terrorize Indigenous Peoples. It’s why the RCMP were formed in the first place. Reconciliation is not paramilitary occupation. #Reconciliation#Wetsuweten#Canada#IndigenousMastodon#RCMP#NativeMastodon#LandDefenders#Apartheid
"Wet’suwet’en hereditary leaders have opposed #pipeline construction through their traditional territory since before the #CoastalGasLink pipeline project was first proposed. In December 2018, the B.C. Supreme Court issued an interim injunction to the company, which prohibited anyone from blocking pipeline access roads or work sites. A year later, on Dec. 31, 2019, the court granted a permanent injunction for the duration of the project.
[...]
"Last month, Tammen determined there was sufficient evidence to convict three #Indigenous#LandDefenders — Sleydo’ Molly Wickham, Shaylynn Sampson and Corey Jocko. They were arrested the day after Dennis and later charged with criminal #contempt. Hearings have begun into an application by the defence to stay the charges based on police conduct during the arrests.
"#ChiefDstahyl’s arrest took place in October 2021, after a series of interactions with Coastal GasLink workers and security contractors on the Shea Forest Service Road on Likhts’amisyu Clan territory.
"During those interactions, Dsta’hyl and others blocked access to a work camp and 'seized and rendered inoperable' multiple pieces of machinery belonging to Coastal GasLink contractors by cutting electrical wires and removing batteries, according to evidence presented during the trial.
"When Dsta’hyl was arrested, he had four batteries from heavy machinery in the back of his pickup truck, the judge said.
"'There is little dispute concerning the basic facts,' Tammen said, noting that video evidence documenting the incidents was presented during the trial.
"'Chief Dsta’hyl, acting as an enforcement officer for the Likhts’amisyu Clan, participated in the decommissioning of a piece of heavy equipment owned by a CGL subcontractor on Oct. 17, 2021. That action consisted of removing the battery from the equipment, an excavator, thus rendering it inoperable.'
"Witnesses for the defence included other #Likhtsamisyu Chiefs, who described the Wet’suwet’en traditional clan system and its role in governing the traditional territory. Among the Chiefs’ duties is preservation and protection of the traditional territory, or #yintah, Tammen said.
"Tammen also summarized the Wet’suwet’en law of trespass, something described in detail by defence witnesses, saying permission is required to access territory belonging to a house group 'beyond just passing through it.'
[...]
"Criminal contempt penalties can include fines or imprisonment. Sentencing has been set for 9 a.m. on March 6."
Footage shot over 10 years on the front lines of the Wet’suwet’en land defenders’ battle with Coastal GasLink’s pipeline project has been made into a documentary film that will premiere at the True/False Film Fest in Missouri March 1.
Be a fly on the wall in a tiny cabin during an RCMP raid. Hear the stories of resistance directly from those who have put themselves in the pipeline’s path.
#NEW: RCMP considered shooting a security camera and sending a police dog to remove people from a structure as they moved to make arrests in #Wetsuweten in November 2021, according to testimony in a B.C. Supreme Court hearing.
#UPDATE: Three Indigenous land defenders charged more than two years ago with defying a court order have been found guilty of criminal contempt in B.C. Supreme Court. @afh reports.
Solidarity with Indigenous Land Defenders facing state repression! The Wet'suwet'en continue to resist pipelines on their territories. Three Indigenous Land Defenders - Sleydo' (Wet'suwet'en), Shay (Gitxsan), and Jay-o-cee (Haudenosaunee) - will be facing trial starting January 8, 2024, at the Smithers (BC) Court House. #Wetsuweten#Indigenous#cdnpoli
This is a good time for me to share how #RCMP used drones to spy on us at Fairy Creek & Tiny House blockades. Then used surveillance data to locate our WIFI media & satellite communications stations. Then commenced siege raids, targeting our communications stations first & our food & medical stations after. We built portable solar powered satellite comms units, after 6 comms stations were destroyed by RCMP - we mounted them on donated hand wagons.
Reminder for ppl in #BC & #Canada & ppl outside of Canada who may have missed last few years of #Indigenous#resistance against corrupt crapitalism & violent #colonial corporate mercenaries on #Wetsuweten territory -
#BCgovernment w/support from #Trudeau federal govt, allowed #RCMP#CIRG to set up #illegal checkpoints in multiple places across their ancestral lands. My friends have to pass & be harassed by RCMP & ecocide industry ppl - to access their own lands & homes.
The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York City closed its lobby today, September 15, for over two hours after dozens of climate activists blocked the institution’s ticketed entrances. The demonstrators were protesting the museum’s ties to private equity firm Kohlberg Kravis Roberts (KKR), which has invested heavily in fossil fuel projects
#EXCLUSIVE: The RCMP spent $11 million on patrolling a resource road on #Wetsuweten territory to protect a pipeline project — despite no significant police actions in the area, according to documents obtained by The Tyee.