UN Special Rapporteur calls for a stop to the criminalization of water defenders opposed to megaprojects in Canada
Pedro Arrojo-Agudo, the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the right to water and sanitation, presented to the Human Rights Council in Geneva this morning. He speaks about his visit to Canada here (starting at 2:09:54). While in Canada this past April 8 to 19, Arrojo-Agudo journeyed to Wet’suwet’en territory.
Among his recommendations to the Canadian state, the UN Special Rapporteur highlighted “stop criminalization of those who oppose large-scale industries in their territories.”
He also called on Canada to “enact legal reforms to guarantee throughout the country Indigenous peoples right to free, prior and informed consent” and “First Nations jurisdiction over the water sources on which they depend even if they are off reserve.”
In her 5-minute response (starting at 2:13:17), Minister-Counsellor Patricia Lyn McCullagh, Canada’s Deputy Permanent Representative to the United Nations, does not directly comment on the recommendation to stop the criminalization of water defenders.
Instead, the Deputy Permanent Representative only notes: “Canada will take into account the recommendations of the Special Rapporteur in the implementation of its action plan on the law on the Declaration of the United Nations on the rights of Indigenous peoples… [and] …Canada will continue to study the recommendations contained in the report…”
Militarized RCMP raids against water defenders
Amnesty International has documented: “Injunctions have been used by the government of Canada and the Province of [British Columbia] to undertake constant surveillance, harassment, and the forceful removal and jailing of Wet’suwet’en land defenders. Hereditary Chiefs, and matriarchs were arrested and jailed using a highly militarized police force on their territories. In three large-scale police raids (January 2019, February 2020 and November 2021), a total of 74 people were arrested and detained, including among others, legal observers and members of the media. These raids were highly militarized with the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) using helicopters, dog units and assault weapons not to mention involvement by CGL’s private security company. In such raids they bulldozed and burned down buildings and desecrated ceremonial spaces.”
Watch the trailer from Yintah (on CBC Gem as of September 17 and Netflix on October 18).
Now, representatives from Amnesty International (France, Germany, the United States, Canada) and Front Line Defenders (Ireland) are monitoring an ongoing abuse of process court hearing in Smithers, British Columbia in which three Indigenous water defenders arrested by the RCMP in the above-mentioned November 2021 raid are alleging the “disproportionate and excessive use of force” against them in violation of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. The application also alleges that the three water defenders were “variously denied their right to security of person, subjected to unreasonable search and seizure, arbitrarily detained and imprisoned, and denied reasonable bail without just cause.”
Front Line Defenders has further explained:
“The human rights defenders are being prosecuted for their rights as indigenous peoples, as well as their freedom of assembly in peacefully protesting the human rights impacts of the construction of TC Energy’s Coastal GasLink pipeline, which does not have the free, prior and informed consent of the Wet’suwet’en Hereditary Chiefs.
In 2019, the UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination issued a decision to the Canadian State, urging them to halt the construction and to suspend all permits and approvals for the construction of the Coastal Gas Link pipeline in the ancestral land of the Wet’suwet’en Nation, as well as to cease any forced evictions against them.
Although the letter was sent to Canadian authorities, and the construction of a pipeline blatantly disregards the Wet’suwet’en laws and traditions, the project continued and the injunction remained in force during the following years, which caused indigenous human rights defenders to peacefully block access to their territory.
Front Line Defenders expresses its concern with the misuse of criminal law against these human rights defenders, as it believes they are being targeted as a reprisal for their legitimate human rights work in defence of their environment and their ancestral land, in an attempt to refrain them in their work. Indigenous rights defenders, especially those working against the negative effects of the implementation of extractive and infrastructure projects on their lands, have been living in a high-risk situation, with many of them being threatened, attacked and criminalized. Indigenous Peoples in Canada have also faced restrictions on their lands, with the use of injunctions against them by corporations.”
Gitanyow water defenders oppose pipeline
The concerns expressed by Amnesty International and Front Line Defenders, and the inattention of Canada’s Deputy Permanent Representative to the specific concerns about criminalization and RCMP violence, is particularly worrisome as Gitanyow water protectors in northern British Columbia have now set up a checkpoint on a highway in peaceful resistance to the PRGT fracked gas pipeline being built on their territory. This proposed pipeline will span more than 1,000 waterways, including major salmon-bearing rivers.
We continue to follow this situation and echo the UN Special Rapporteur’s recommendation to stop the criminalization of water defenders in Canada.
Further reading: UN Special Rapporteur comments on the “repression and persecution” faced by Indigenous water protectors in Canada (PBI-Canada, April 19, 2024).
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