Photo from The Guardian by Samuel Corum/AFP/Getty.

This summer, the American Civil Liberties Union noted their concerns about the “unconstitutional attacks” on the right to protest by local police and federal agents deployed in Portland, Oregon.

The question has also arisen, who is arming this repression?

As such, there have been investigative reports and parliamentary questions about British-made riot control equipment being used against protests in the United States.

The Guardian now reports: “US law enforcement officers used British anti-riot gear to strike protesters during their controversial policing of Black Lives Matter demonstrations… Officers deployed at demonstrations in Washington DC hit protesters and in one case a journalist using shields made by the British-based firm DMS Plastics.”

The article adds: “Images from late May and June show a number of incidents of law enforcement units holding Scorpion-brand shields made by DMS, including the US park police, the Secret Service and Arlington county police.”

These findings are part of a joint investigation by The Guardian, Sky News, Bellingcat, and Lighthouse Reports.

Similarly, there have been some investigative reports about possible Canadian exports to the police in Hong Kong and Belarus.

This past July, The Globe and Mail reported: “A Canadian government official … said Ottawa wants to prevent equipment being shipped to Hong Kong that could be used by the local police to suppress protests.”

That article also notes that Canada may have in the past exported tear gas or riot-control equipment, as well as electronic jamming equipment.

More recently, The Globe and Mail also reported that Predator riot-control vehicles appear to be being used against protests in Belarus. The company that manufactures that vehicle was founded in Canada but now has 12 production facilities around the world.

But what about Canadian exports to the United States?

In July, NBC affiliate KGW8 reported that a U.S. Department of Homeland Security Beechcraft Super King Air 350 flew over Black Lives Matter protests in Portland for almost three hours. It’s possible that the engine for this aircraft was made by Pratt Whitney & Canada.

There was also an Instagram post about an unconfirmed sighting of a Stryker armoured vehicle in Portland. The General Dynamics plant in London, Ontario has manufactured Stryker vehicles for export to the United States.

Still, it is not clear if Canadian-made riot gear, tear gas, rubber bullets, riot-control vehicles or other equipment have been used in the United States.

Labour MP Emily Thornberry has stated: “The British public deserve to know how arms exported by this country are being used across the world and the American public deserve the right to protest peacefully without the threat of violent repression.”

We think the Canadian public has a right to know as well.

This summer, the Scottish Parliament voted to suspend the export of riot control gear to the United States and 166 British Members of Parliament from nine parties (including the Conservatives, Labour and the Greens) signed a letter making the same demand. Similar efforts by Canadian MPs would be welcome.

A core mandate of Peace Brigades International is to reduce violence and open up political space for social change.

PBI-Canada notes that the right to protest is enshrined in the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights, but that the lack of transparency and accountability regarding the export of equipment used against protests undermines this fundamental right in the US and in other countries around the world.

To register for our webinar on police violence on October 30, that will feature defenders from Colombia, Guatemala, Nicaragua, Kenya and Canada, please click here.

#MakingSpaceForPeace

The Escazú Agreement is the first legally binding treaty to include specific provisions to protect environmental defenders.

Twenty-three countries (two-thirds of the countries) in Latin America and the Caribbean have now signed the Escazú Agreement. Ten of those countries have ratified the deal, meaning only one more country needs to ratify it before it is implemented.

To send a message to Prime Minister Trudeau asking his government to encourage ratification of the agreement prior to the crucial next meeting of signatory countries scheduled for December 9-10, please click here.

Where are the countries that PBI provides accompaniment to environmental defenders in the process of the ratification of the agreement?

Colombia filed the Escazú Agreement with Congress in July. It will be debated there and then reviewed by the Constitutional Court which will take a few months. The Duque government initially opposed the agreement, but now backs it. Support for the agreement was one of the demands of the national strike protests in 2019.

In Mexico, President Andrés Manuel López Obrador sent the agreement to the Senate in mid-August. There appears to be hope it will be ratified.

While Guatemala has signed the agreement, the process of its ratification has stagnated under President Alejandro Giammattei.

Honduras has not signed Escazú, but social and environmental organizations continue to insist on the importance of the agreement.

In September 2018, Peace Brigades International endorsed the Escazú Agreement as “a means to guarantee a safe environment in which individuals, groups and organizations that promote and defend human rights related to the environment can act without facing threats, restrictions, attacks or danger.”

PBI-Colombia and PBI-Mexico have also publicly endorsed the agreement.

To send your message to Prime Minister Trudeau, please click here.

Wet’suwet’en solidarity rally, Ottawa, February 7, 2020.

On October 2, CBC reported: “Canada’s spy agency has refused to release internal records on Indigenous-led actions in support of Wet’suwet’en hereditary chiefs by using an exemption under the access to information law normally reserved for information related to gathering intelligence to detect or suppress terrorism.“

That article adds: “CSIS withheld internal records under a section of the Access to Information Act that allows exemptions for records connected to intelligence activities related to ‘detecting, preventing or suppressing subversive or hostile activities’, according to a letter from the agency’s Access to Information branch.”

The solidarity actions began in February of this year following an RCMP raid on unceded Wet’suwet’en territory in British Columbia that dismantled blockades established by land defenders against the construction of the Coastal GasLink fracked gas pipeline that lacks the free, prior and informed consent of the Wet’suwet’en.

The RCMP had also raided Wet’suwet’en territory the previous year and arrested 14 land defenders on January 7, 2019.

In an affidavit signed the day after that raid, RCMP Sergeant John Uzelac stated: “I am aware that critical infrastructure can be targeted by persons with radicalized ideology.”

And notes from a RCMP strategy session showed that RCMP commanders argued that “lethal overwatch is req’d” (a term for using lethal force) and that officers were instructed to “use as much violence toward the gate as you want” ahead of the operation to remove the roadblock established by Wet’suwet’en land defenders.

In this most recent news report, CBC received two heavily redacted emails through their access to information request, one of which references the “CGOC”.

That likely refers to the Government Operations Centre.

The CBC has previously reported: “An operations centre charged with alerting the federal government to potential threats to public safety monitored demonstrations calling for an inquiry into murdered and missing Indigenous women.”

That article adds: “Other movements that were monitored included Idle No More and protests against the Trans Mountain Expansion Project, the Northern Gateway pipeline, the Energy East and Eastern Mainline Projects, and the Lower Churchill Hydroelectric Generation Project.”

In June 2014, the Ottawa Citizen reported: “Last year the Government Operations Centre was involved in coordinating a response to Aboriginal demonstrations against fracking.”

That article continues: “It also produced a spreadsheet detailing 32 planned events in support of anti-fracking. Those included a healing dance in Kenora, Ont., a prayer ceremony in Edmonton and an Idle No More ‘taco fundraiser, raffle and jam session’ planned at the Native Friendship Centre in Barrie, Ont. …”

Additionally, a long-awaited Civilian Review Complaints Commission report on the actions of RCMP officers in 2013 against Mi’kmaq water protectors opposed to seismic testing for fracking being conducted on Elsipogtog territories without their consent by Houston-based SWN Resources is expected to be released this fall.

Peace Brigades International-Canada expresses concern that the RCMP viewing climate-killing fracked gas pipelines as “critical infrastructure”, Indigenous land defence struggles as a “radicalized ideology”, instructions to use “as much violence … as you want” against defenders, and refusing to release information under the guise of national security, establishes a police culture that can view land defenders as enemies of the state.

This criminalization of Indigenous land defenders in this way makes attacks on them seem legitimate, which in turn also makes them more likely.

PBI-Canada reaffirms that defending rights is not a crime.

On October 2, CBC reported: “The average amount of time it takes for the top Mountie to respond to misconduct findings by the RCMP’s watchdog is growing, says the head of the Civilian Review and Complaints Commission [CRCC].”

The article highlights the review of RCMP actions that took place over several months in 2013 against Indigenous land defenders and allies opposed to fracking on unceded Miꞌkmaq territory in Kent County, New Brunswick, Canada.

Notably, on October 17, 2013 hundreds of RCMP officers lined up across a road near a protest encampment established by the Elsipogtog First Nation. Mi’kmaq land defenders had set up the camp in opposition to seismic testing for fracking being conducted on their territories without their consent by Houston-based SWN Resources.

At that time Vice reported: “What started out as a peaceful demonstration held by members of First Nations tribes turned into what resembled a war zone after the RCMP showed up with guns, Tasers, and dogs.”

In May 2019, Ann Pohl, a Kent County activist supporting the protests, wrote: “The federal Civilian Commission got its first complaints about human rights violations by the RCMP six years ago, and the public still has not seen their report.”

The Complaints Commissioner delivered the report on those incidents to the RCMP in March 2019. More than a full year later, on June 12, 2020, the CBC reported “the RCMP will provide its response this week.”

Now, almost seven years after the incidents in Elsipogtog, CBC reports: “A spokesperson for the CRCC said the RCMP responded to those findings over the summer and a final report is being finalized and prepped for public release this fall.”

There are concerns about what the report will say.

Earlier this summer, CBC reported: “[The Commission] found that in general terms and with certain exceptions, RCMP members did not demonstrate bias in general, or engage in differential treatment of Indigenous protesters when making arrests.”

That article adds: “RCMP Commissioner Brenda Lucki said she agrees with most of the recommendations in the report.”

PBI-Canada echoes Voices at Risk with the concern that the “failure to investigate and prosecute threats or attacks against land or environmental defenders can create a climate of impunity, which can lead to further attacks.”

To see a 90-second trailer for the 22-minute documentary Water Warriors about this struggle against fracking, please click here. The photo above is from the Elsipogtog in Five Minutes video by Kwakwaka’wakw historian and comic book artist Gord Hill.

We send this e-newsletter out every week to 3,600 people. We would like to increase our readership to 5,000 people in the coming months.

There are two ways you can help us to do that!

1- Make an online donation so that we can continue share concise and contextualized updates on the human rights struggles that PBI accompanies

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Click on the bolded hyperlinks above to take action.

A key element to the accompaniment that PBI provides to defenders is increasing their visibility outside of their home country, building public awareness of their struggles, and mobilizing concern about the violations that they experience.

Thank you for your continued support defending the defenders, visibilizing their struggles, and helping to make space for peace!

As Peace Brigades International approaches its 40th anniversary in 2021, we are sharing the reflections of past volunteers from Canada who accompanied at-risk defenders in various PBI project countries over the years.

Mitchell J. Goldberg, who now lives in Montreal, accompanied defenders through the Peace Brigades International-Guatemala Project in 1989-90.

Mitchell tells us:

“PBI is an inspiring opportunity to live the ideals of nonviolence. What is more, it illuminated my path to become a refugee lawyer. I drew on the compassion and courage of Guatemalan human rights defenders who risked their lives to bring about peaceful change.”

As a PBI volunteer, Mitchell accompanied refugee leaders negotiating a potential return from Mexico and threatened human rights groups inside the country.

In 2011 he co-founded the Canadian Association of Refugee Lawyers and earlier this year he highlighted the crucial link between climate change and migration:

“Every time the Canadian government provides subsidies to the gas sector, every time it builds another pipeline, we should be thinking of the impact it will have on millions of people around the world living in already precarious situations. There is a very powerful moral and legal obligation, especially for Canada, to step up the plate to take responsibility for our actions and the impacts we have had on millions of people around the world.”

Please consider making an online donation to PBI-Canada to help us with our continuing outreach efforts to find volunteers to accompany defenders. Accompaniment continues to be critically needed in helping to make space for peace.

Peace Brigades International-Canada marked Orange Shirt Day on September 30.

The day is dedicated to raising awareness about the residential school system and its traumatic, inter-generational impact on Indigenous peoples in Canada.

Orange Shirt Day was inspired by the experience of residential school survivor Phyllis Webstad who, at age six, had a new orange shirt bought by her grandmother taken away on her first day at residential school in British Columbia.

We remember the genocide in this country in which 150,000 Indigenous children were stolen from their families and taken to residential schools, the 6,000 children who died at those schools and the intergenerational harm caused by this policy of forced assimilation. In 1931, there were 80 residential schools operating in Canada.

The last residential school wasn’t closed until 1996.

We also take note of the comment by Tanya Tagaq, an Inuk throat singer from Iqaluktuutiaq, Nunavut, who says: “A day is not enough. I lifetime is not enough. The foster care system is the new residential school program. People are still being killed. Wear your shirt today. Remember that tomorrow there is still blood on it.”

And we note the comments by Gabrielle Fayant, a Metis activist from Fishing Lake Metis Settlement, Alberta, who says: “On #OrangeShirtDay2020, I want Canadians to know that the intentions of genocide and assimilation from the Residential Schools never stopped. It literally morphed into Day Schools, Child Welfare, forced sterilization, destruction of lands and all other forms of systemic racism.”

Fayant adds: “If you believe that #EveryChildMatters, you have to support land defenders and water protectors who are fighting for every child now and 7 generations ahead.”

Global Witness has highlighted: “Indigenous peoples are at a disproportionate risk of reprisals. Last year, 40% of murdered defenders belonged to indigenous communities. Between 2015 and 2019 over a third of all fatal attacks have targeted indigenous people – even though indigenous communities make up only 5% of the world’s population.”

Peace Brigades International projects accompany Indigenous land defenders in Colombia, Mexico, Guatemala and Honduras.