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PBI-Canada participates in “Resisting CANSEC: Strength through Peace” webinar

By
Brent Patterson
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Photo: Quakers outside the CANSEC arms show in Ottawa, May 2025.

On February 11, Peace Brigades International-Canada participated in a webinar alongside the Canadian Friends Service Committee (CFSC-Quakers) and the Canadian peace research institute Project Ploughshares.

The video of this webinar will be posted soon.

Kelsey Gallagher from the Waterloo, Ontario-based Project Ploughshares focused on Bill C-233, the No More Loopholes Act.

Gallagher has previously explained on the Project Ploughshares website: “The Bill proposes changes to Canada’s arms export controls, specifically regarding transfers to the US. Nearly all Canadian military exports to the US currently proceed without an export permit and therefore without case-by-case review by Canadian officials. This exemption is long-standing and unique among Canada’s export relationships and poses a significant transparency and oversight gap, particularly with respect to Canada’s obligations under the United Nations Arms Trade Treaty.”

Mel Burns from the Canadian Friends Service Committee (CFSC-Quakers) spoke about the various ways in which Friends can participate in the mobilization around the CANSEC arms show in Ottawa this coming May 27-28.

We are reminded of the comment by the head of witness and worship for Quakers in Britain Oliver Robertson speaking about the Defence and Security Equipment International (DSEI) arms show in London: “As Quakers, we worship in silence to listen for the promptings of love and truth in our hearts. That truth is clear: making money from killing people is obscene. Weapons sold here are destroying lives in Gaza and around the world. The real crime is happening inside the arms fair, not outside it.”

Burns also highlighted their Book club—Civil resistance: what everyone needs to know beginning on March 19.

And Brent Patterson from Peace Brigades International-Canada spoke about observing the most recent DSEI arms show at the ExCel Centre in London in September 2025 and also shared a PowerPoint presentation with photos of the mobilization against the CANSEC arms show at the EY Centre in Ottawa this past May 2025.

He highlighted that according to the Canadian Association of Defence and Security Industries (CADSI) website, CANSEC involves 300 exhibiting companies, 15,000+ registrants, 60+ international delegations, 600+ VIPS, generals, top military & government officials, and that 96% of attendees have purchasing power.

This year, PBI-Canada is researching the export of military goods/strategic goods and technology from Canada and highlighting their potential impact on the safety and security of human rights defenders in five countries: Mexico, the Philippines, Indonesia, Palestine and the United States.

The first report can be read at Country report: The export of “military goods” to Indonesia; attacks against human rights defenders.

For updates about communities organizing against CANSEC this year, you can visit the Shut.Down.CANSEC Instagram page.

Lax’yip Firekeepers march in Victoria against PRGT pipeline; Filipino youth draw parallels in the defence of ancestral lands

By
Brent Patterson
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Video still from Anakbayan Victoria social media post.

The Victoria News reports on a protest against the Prince Rupert Gas Transmission (PRGT) pipeline that took place in downtown Victoria, British Columbia on Saturday February 7.

The article highlights that the Lax’yip Firekeepers, a Gitxsan youth-led organization that led the demonstration, has stated in a media release: “The PRGT pipeline is a project deeply rooted in a legacy of colonial coercion, exploitation, and manipulation. From its inception, this project has aimed to divide our people, using undisclosed payments to those willing to accept them while threatening injunctions and violence against those who stand in defence of their land.”

And the article notes that Gitanyow Hereditary Chief Simogyet Gamlakyeltxw (Wil Marsden) says: “Our ancestors protected our Lax’yip for thousands of years, and it is now our duty to do the same for future generations. We have a responsibility to safeguard the health of our lands and waters. Salmon is the lifeblood of our people and the PRGT pipeline threatens our food security, our culture, and our survival in an already rapidly changing climate.”

Notably, an Instagram post from Anakbayan Victoria highlights: “On Feb 7, members of Anakbayan Victoria marched alongside Lax’yip Firekeepers @laxyipyouth, Friends of Gitxsan and Gitanyow @friendsofgitxsangitanyow, and 100+ others to amplify their calls to end the construction of the Prince Rupert Gas Transmission (PRGT) pipeline and Ksi Lisims LNG Terminal in the northern part of British Columbia.”

They add: “The resistance against the building PRGT pipeline mirrors the ongoing militarization in Mindoro, Philippines. The indigenous Mangyan people of Mindoro are currently experiencing food blockades and aerial bombing from the Armed Forces of the Philippines, ever since Piece Land Corporation arrived to instate their commercial industry and real estate over the ancestral lands. Defend Mindoro has been an ongoing campaign organized by indigenous Filipinos to resist the violations the AFP has put onto the Mangyan people to protect the interests of foreign corporations.”

Progressive International has also explained: “The Defend Mindoro campaign unites indigenous peoples, youth, and rights advocates against militarization, land grabs, and corporate plunder threatening the island’s ancestral domains and livelihoods.”

Third deadliest country for land and environmental defenders

Between 2012 and 2024, the Philippines was the third deadliest country for land and environmental defenders, according to data from Global Witness. They note that 306 defenders were killed in the Philippines during this period, with 413 killed in Brazil and 509 killed in Colombia during these years.

Global Witness has further noted about the situation in the Philippines: “The military has been linked to the highest number of killings and detentions of land and environmental defenders in the last decade… A Global Witness investigation published in December 2024 found that the government’s push to expand critical minerals mining in the country is putting frontline communities, especially Indigenous Peoples, at risk of militarisation and violence.”

We continue to follow this.

Additional reading

Filipino human rights defenders and allies rally in Ottawa as thousands protest corruption in the Philippines (PBI-Canada article, November 30, 2025)

PBI-Canada continues to monitor the Civilian Review and Complaints Commission systemic investigation of the RCMP C-IRG (January 23, 2026).

Poster from Lax’yip Firekeepers Facebook page.

PBI-Colombia meets with Justice and Peace Commission and community leaders from territories impacted by armed actors

By
Brent Patterson
-

The Peace Brigades International-Colombia Project has posted on social media:

“Together with the Justice and Peace Commission (@justiciaypazcol) and leaders from the Naya River and Cabeceras (Valle del Cauca), Cajibio, and Argelia (Cauca), we facilitated a valuable space for exchange and the development of collective strategies for environmental defense and territorial peacebuilding amidst humanitarian crises, armed conflicts, and violence stemming from the control of territories, their routes, and their natural resources. Urgent responses from the State—comprehensive and agreed upon with the affected communities—and a sustained presence of civil authorities in territories heavily impacted by armed actors and both licit and illicit economies are needed.”

The post above notes the Naya River, Cabeceras, Cajibio and Argelia.

To give some additional context to the situation noted by PBI-Colombia, we further highlight that The Rio Times reported on January 28, 2026: “In El Plateado, a rural population center in Argelia municipality, Cauca, an explosion linked to a drone attack killed at least one person and wounded many others. Early official and media counts differed, with 14 injured reported in initial statements and other outlets citing about 15. Local authorities said several victims suffered severe injuries. …Cauca is not a random target. El Plateado sits in the Cañón del Micay zone, a strategic corridor tied to armed control and illicit routes. The area has long been contested by illegal armed groups, including the ELN and dissident factions descended from the former FARC. In this case, some reporting attributed the attack to the ‘Carlos Patiño’ structure.”

We also note:

Argelia: In December 2025, Justice and Peace posted: “Illegal armed structure Segunda Marquetalia murders a peasant woman in the village of El Pinche, Santa Clara corregimiento. Argelia, Cauca. …KEISY was a single mother of a 2-year-old girl, a well-known peasant in the area who had no links with illegal armed groups, which is why the community is dismayed by the pronouncements of the illegal armed group Segunda Marquetalia, who claim that these people are casualties in the midst of fighting with the ELN, which in addition to the irreparable damage to the life of the young mother, creates an environment of stigmatization towards the peasant settlers.”

Naya River: In January 2025, Justice and Peace posted: “In this collective territory of the Naya River, two displacements were recorded in 2024, one internal and the other towards Buenaventura, the attention provided to 120 families who were forced to move is unknown . In September, a massacre was recorded with12 victims.”

PBI has accompanied the Inter-Church Justice and Peace Commission since 1994.

We continue to follow this situation.

Espacio OSC shares Urgent call about strengthened Protection Mechanism support needed for lawyer Poulette Celene Hernandez

By
Brent Patterson
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Image from Red Defensoras Mexico.

Espacio OSC has posted on social media about an attack and threats against lawyer and human rights defender Poulette Celene Hernandez.

The Digna Ochoa Human Rights Centre has also posted on social media:

“Poulette Celene Hernandez is a lawyer and human rights defender. [She] coordinates work with women in the Costa de Chiapas region, accompanying victims of violence and strengthening training processes in women’s human rights, community health and agroecology. Her work is developed in contexts of high vulnerability and risk for advocates. In recent days, attempts to strip by the Interoceanic Corridor have been reported, as well as the collusion between criminal groups with authorities in the region.”

It then highlights:

“This human rights center has documented physical aggression and death threats against Human Rights Defender Poulette Celene Hernandez, in the municipality of Tonalá, Istmo-Costa region of the state of Chiapas, Mexico. Recent events indicate a pattern of harassment and high risk, prompting urgent concern for their life, physical integrity and personal safety.”

Along with a “Description of the facts”, the Human Rights Centre requests that Mexican authorities take several measures to ensure the safety of Hernandez, including: “Coordinate actions with the Protection Mechanism for Human Rights Defenders and Journalists of the Federal Government.”

News reports

El Universal now reports: “In the case of Poulette Celene Hernández, who is under the Protection Mechanism for Human Rights Defenders and Journalists, she has asked for security mechanisms to be strengthened, while the Chiapas Prosecutor’s Office and the People’s Secretariat of Public Security implemented precautionary measures for her protection, that of her partner and son.”

Diario del Sur also reports: “Faced with this situation, the Digna Ochoa Human Rights Center urged the adoption of urgent, effective and concerted protection measures with the defender, guaranteeing her life, physical integrity and safety. It also asked the authorities to implement security measures in their home and environment, including preventive surveillance and immediate reaction mechanisms, as well as to investigate the facts with due diligence, a gender perspective and a differentiated approach to defenders, ensuring the prosecution of file 070-2026 and the punishment of those responsible.”

Espacio OSC

As noted on their website: “The Espacio OSC monitors and proposes reforms and improvements to the current protection policy in Mexico for defenders and journalists, in order to change dominant institutions, policies and paradigms.”

Espacio OSC is made up of 13 national organizations and is accompanied by Peace Brigades International.

One of those member groups is the National Network of Civil Human Rights Organizations “All Rights for All” (Red TDT) that has also posted about Hernandez on social media. Their post says: “Poulette Celene Hernández, a human rights defender from the Digna Ochoa Human Rights Center and a member of the TDT Network, was attacked.”

Webinar, Thursday February 12

Espacio OSC, PBI-Mexico and PBI-Canada are working together to present a webinar this Thursday that will explain what the Protection Mechanism does and why it needs to be strengthened.

To register for that webinar (with simultaneous Spanish-English translation), click here.

Remembering the formation and history of the Peace Brigades International-North America Project

By
Brent Patterson
-

In the Spring of 2016, Steve Molnar, the coordinator of the Peace Brigades International-North America Project for its first four years, recalled:

“I helped to start the North American Project together with Alaine Hawkins from Canada, and other returned volunteers from the Guatemala Project.

Akwesasne

In 1990, there had been a lot of violence in a native community near where I live, Akwesasne, a Mohawk reservation that straddles the border with Quebec, Ottawa, and upstate New York.

A number of former PBI volunteers had passed through Akwesasne at this time. Out of that experience, four or five people who had gone there said it might be wise for Peace Brigades to start a North America Project to be prepared for similar situations.

For the next year, we did a lot of planning and networking within PBI and with native communities.

Kanesatake and Kahnawake

The following spring, there was violence in other Mohawk communities in Canada. In one, provincial police opened fire on a Mohawk barricade. Soon after, there was a big standoff between the military and the provincial police with Mohawks on a bridge in Montreal that lasted for 60 days.

We were still developing the project at that time and weren’t ready to respond at that point. However at the one-year anniversary of that standoff, we had a request to go into two of the Mohawk communities, Kanehsatake and Kahnawake, and the North America Project (NAP) began.

The Innu, the US Southwest

We spent a lot of time with Innu communities in Labrador and Quebec. We went out west to a number of communities in the US Southwest. There were probably about a dozen communities we worked with over about eight or nine years.

Non-traditional approaches 

It opened up our thinking of nonviolent intervention and differed from PBI’s traditional model of working in other countries in the (global) South. Here we were working in communities where we had a country group (PBI-USA and PBI-Canada). There were things going on within our borders that were worthy of PBI’s attention.

We were bringing our experience from other Projects and trying to use that in the North American context. There were a lot of things that we did in Guatemala that were quite applicable and then some things that were just totally new. In Guatemala, we might see massacres or open violence.

We didn’t see as much of that in North America, but we did witness a type of genocide, a cultural genocide. A lot of our work was spent recording that. Certainly there were some guns and bullets and some deaths, but just as easily, it might be suicide, alcohol abuse, or loss of language, land, or natural resources.

We explored creative strategies. PBI worked with indigenous people in El Salvador, for example, and we brought some of these people to meet indigenous people in North America to have exchanges, so they could share their struggles with one another.

The North America Project lasted nearly ten years throughout the entire 1990’s.”

Additional reading

– Annual review: PBI-Canada’s “transformative proposition” of extending PBI’s protective accompaniment into a “Northern” territory (October 29, 2025)

–Making Space for Peace by Joan Edenburg.

PBI-Honduras meets with National Union of Rural Workers (CNTC) about farming communities at risk of eviction

By
Brent Patterson
-

The Peace Brigades International-Honduras Project has posted on social media:

“Last week, we met with the CNTC El Progreso to discuss the alarming situation in the Bendición de Dios and 17 de Junio ​​peasant communities, which are at risk of eviction. We expressed our concern about the recurring criminalization of land defenders in Honduras and reiterated that a comprehensive agrarian reform with a gender perspective is essential for the Honduran people’s right to land and food security.”

The CNTC refers to the National Union of Rural Workers. Peace Brigades International has accompanied the union since May 2018.

The CNTC is affiliated with the Unified Confederation of Honduran Workers (CUTH) which in turn is affiliated with the International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC), along with 150+ labour organizations including the Canadian Labour Congress.

We continue to follow this situation.

Additional reading: PBI-Honduras accompanies the CNTC rural workers union and 17 de junio community at trial date on land “usurpation” (April 1, 2025).

PBI-Colombia accompanies CREDHOS and FEDEPESAN as Ecopetrol team visits artisanal fishing ecosystems

By
Brent Patterson
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The Regional Corporation for the Defence of Human Rights (CREDHOS) has posted on social media:

“We accompanied Fedepesán [the Federation of Artisanal, Environmentalist, and Touristic Fishermen and Women of Santander] and Ecopetrol’s Environmental and Community Relations team on a reconnaissance visit to georeference strategic points along the Rosario, San Silvestre, and Palotal waterways.

This visit addressed the recurring environmental impacts identified and reported by local artisanal fishing communities. It also aims to encourage the company to conduct water and sediment quality analyses, strengthening inter-institutional efforts to protect and conserve these ecosystems.”

PBI-Canada visited the San Silvestre wetlands on June 30, 2022.

We have highlighted in previous articles the research available in the “Banking on Climate Chaos: Fossil Fuel Finance Report” including this article from May 2022 and this article from March 2025.

Here we provide the most recent information from the 2025 Report (with amounts in millions USD).

We encourage the institutional investors in Ecopetrol – including the Toronto, Canada-based Scotiabank – to be aware of this situation and the need to strengthen efforts to protect and conserve ecosystems.

Peace Brigades International has accompanied CREDHOS since 1994.

Two webinars this week!

By
Brent Patterson
-

Join us on Wednesday February 11 at 7:00 pm ET for a discussion about the CANSEC arms show that takes place annually in Ottawa.

To register, click here.

We are organizing this webinar in collaboration with the Canadian Friends Service Committee (CFSC) and we are reaching out specifically to the Quaker community across Canada to amplify both concerns and credible ways forward to address the impact of weapons exports on human rights.

The speakers will be Kelsey Gallager (Project Ploughshares), Brent Patterson (PBI-Canada) and Mel Burns (CFSC). Moderator: Sandra Wiens (CFSC).

And we hope you will also join us on Thursday February 12 at 5:00 pm ET to hear about the need to strengthen the Protection Mechanism for human rights defenders and journalists in Mexico.

To register, click here.

The Protection Mechanism is an essential tool to protect defenders and journalists, but it is under-funded, lacks the capacity to enrol all who need its help, and needs to be strengthened.

We are working with PBI-Mexico and Espacio OSC to advocate both in Mexico and Canada to ensure the Mechanism is improved.

The speakers will be Elizabeth Guadalupe Mosqueda Rivera (Consorcio Oaxaca), Héctor Hugo Arreola Galván (Zeferino Ladrillero Human Rights Center), Mario Hurtado Cardozo (Espacio OSC), Aledia Quintana Ordaz (National Network of Human Rights Defenders). Moderator: Javier Garate (PBI-Canada).

For updates on this and more, be sure to follow us on Instagram, Bluesky, UpScrolled, Facebook and X. You can also subscribe to our e-mail list here.

Global Sumud Flotilla seeks Unarmed Civilian Protectors to join humanitarian intervention to Palestine, March 26

By
Brent Patterson
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The Global Sumud Flotilla has posted on social media: “On March 29, 2026, a unified maritime flotilla and overland humanitarian convoy will depart simultaneously, mobilizing thousands from over 100 countries in a coordinated, nonviolent response to genocide, siege, mass starvation, and the destruction of civilian life in Gaza.”

Their website further explains:

In response to a direct call from Palestinians in Gaza, the Global Sumud Flotilla is preparing to sail again this spring with thousands of participants, more than a hundred boats, and expanded goals.

This mission not only aims to break the siege and deliver life-saving humanitarian aid, but also to establish a sustained civilian presence. Teams of doctors, nurses, teachers, eco-builders, unarmed civilian protectors, and others will disembark to work alongside the Palestinian people as they continue to endure the Israeli regime’s ongoing attacks and begin rebuilding healthcare systems and basic infrastructure destroyed over the past two years.

Establishing an Unarmed Protective Presence

Deploying trained civilian protectors to work alongside communities to deter violence and document violations.

What is the unarmed protective presence?

Unarmed civilian protectors are highly trained civilians who work alongside local communities to:

  • Deter violence through presence
  • Accompany civilians in high-risk areas
  • Document violations of international law
  • Strengthen local protection and accountability mechanisms

This model has been used historically to deter violence, including in the West Bank, and is distinct from humanitarian aid or military intervention.

Their website also notes:

Advanced Protective Presence

Participants providing visible, unarmed civilian presence to deter harm and document abuses

Advanced Protective Presence participants accompany and support communities through disciplined, visible, and nonviolent presence, coordinated closely with local community guidance.

Requirements:

– Experience in armed conflicts

– Strong self-control and de-escalation

– High situational awareness in volatile or militarized settings

– Ability to follow strict protocols

– Reliable documentation and reporting when required

The application form can be found here.

PBI-Canada and CFSC-Quakers collaborate on webinar on the CANSEC arms show, February 11

By
Brent Patterson
-

We are pleased to be working with the Canadian Friends Service Committee (CFSC-Quakers) on a webinar on February 11 at 7:00 pm ET.

The webinar relates to the CANSEC arms show that will take place on May 27-28 this year at the EY Centre in Ottawa.

The speakers include Kelsey Gallagher from Project Ploughshares and Mel Burns from the Canadian Friends Service Committee.

To register, please click here.

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