Concerns increase as police place cruiser in front of 1492 Land Back Lane prior to October 9 court date

Twitter photo by #1492LandBackLane.

Yesterday, CBC reporter Jorge Barrera tweeted: “The Ontario Provincial Police have now stationed a cruiser in front of 1492 Land Back Lane in Caledonia, Ont.”

Six Nations land defender Skyler Williams comments: “The threat to us and those that support us growing daily. 76 days of it. 60 days ago feels like yesterday when our people were shot at, tasered and beaten.”

One Dish One Mic further comments that police raid – on August 5 – took place “only two days before the key injunction court date on August 7th – as a way of making preparation for the court date impossible.”

It then asks: “Will the OPP attempt a second raid days before a crucial court date again?”

Toronto Star columnist Shree Paradkar has explained that crucial court date will be this coming Friday October 9.

Paradkar writes: “That’s the date of a court hearing when Skyler Williams, a Six Nations member, has to respond to a court injunction that named him as the sole defendant in the case brought by the developer. He was named based on his Facebook post that detailed police action on the land.”

And the Haldimand Press has further explained: “Williams said there are various court dates for groups of people who were arrested, starting on October 20. Meanwhile, the next court hearing on the injunctions, which are the court orders that specifically criminalize demonstrations on McKenzie Meadows and any blockades in the area, is set for October 9.”

The OPP also contacted Williams on September 29 informing him that there was a warrant for his arrest for disobeying a court injunction.

In her article Injunctions as a Tool of Colonialism, lawyer Kate Gunn writes: “It will be critical for courts to carefully consider how to ensure that injunctions are not reduced to a means to advance economic interests [in this case, a 1,000-unit housing development] over the protection of constitutional rights and the expression of Indigenous law [including the occupation of ancestral lands, a right that flows from title].”

The land being occupied by Six Nations land defenders is part of the Haldimand Tract that was granted in 1784 to the Six Nations of the Grand River who form the Haudenosaunee Confederacy.

The Haudenosaunee Confederacy Chiefs Council has not granted its consent for the construction of the housing development on these territories.

The Chiefs have also thanked the land defenders for “taking peaceful steps to protect and save the land for our future generations, who will have nowhere to live and prosper if the settler population continues to unlawfully encroach upon our lands.”

1492 Land Back Lane has set up this Legal Fund to assist with their legal costs. For the latest updates, see #1492LandBackLane on Twitter.