First posted on November 27, 2024.

Photo: Gitanyow Simgiget (Hereditary Chiefs) burn a “benefits agreement” on the PRGT pipeline as they close their territories to all traffic related to the megaproject, August 22, 2024.

The National Observer reports that the fate of the Prince Rupert Gas Transmission (PRGT) pipeline is now in limbo after its decade-old provincial environmental assessment certificate expired on Monday November 25.

Next up, the British Columbia Minister of Environment and Parks Tamara Davidson will either decide to make that certificate permanent and allow the megaproject to proceed, or require a new environmental assessment that would slow down the continuation of the project by two or three years, but not definitively end it.

That decision is expected by March 2025.

Photo: Gitxsan land defenders and supporters disrupt the swearing-in of the new British Columbia provincial government cabinet to say they do not consent to the PRGT pipeline on their lands, November 18, 2024. Photo by Mike Graeme.

Gitanyow and Gitxsan resistance to PRGT

We are following the resistance of Gitanyow land defenders, “Simgiget” (Hereditary Chiefs), and the “Huwilp” (Houses or governing units, the plural of “Wilp”) to defend the Gitanyow “Lax’yip” (territory) from the PRGT megaproject.

A statement from Gitanyow Hereditary Chief Deborah Good/ Simooget Watakhayetswx following the expiry of the certificate says: “We have stood on the territory since August, denying access for PRGT construction vehicles and monitoring to ensure that no construction activity occurs in the Lax’yip. We will continue our on the ground presence with new cabins, a new Indigenous Protected Area, and ongoing monitoring conducted by Wilp members and the Lax’yip Guardians. We thank everyone from around the globe who has offered support in the past 3 months for our effort, it is a true testament to a widespread concern regarding the PRGT and growing opposition to it proceeding.”

Back on August 22, Good said in this video statement: “As of tonight, I am closing the Cranberry Connector from 11 kilometers to 31 kilometres. …I am closing the road and I will keep it closed. There will be no trucks permitted through the territory. No LNG equipment will be permitted through the territory.”

Photo: Gitanyow Hereditary Chiefs: “As we stand our ground and turn back LNG trucks, the love and support you are all showing us at the Genada [Frog Clan] Injunction is overwhelming!” August 30, 2024.

The Gitanyow Hereditary Chiefs have also explained: “The Gitanyow Lax’yip Stewardship Guardians are the ‘eyes and ears’ on the Lax’yip (Territory) and provide a critical role in environmental and cultural monitoring. The Gitanyow Lax’yip Guardians work closely and share an office space with the Gitanyow Fisheries Authority.”

The PRGT pipeline would also impact Gitxsan territory. Mike Graeme has posted (as part of an upcoming IndigiNews article): “Maas Gwitkunuxws Teresa Brown, a Gitxsan woman who’s chosen to make her home for the winter in an uninsulated school bus parked near the pipeline right-of-way, says she will do what it takes to make sure the project is kiboshed.”

Gitxsan land defender Kolin Sutherland-Wilson has also posted this video: “Land Defence + Dog Sanctuary Update with Maasxw Gutgwinuuxw. Home and Dog Sanctuary located on PRGT Pipeline right-of-way on Gitxsan lax’yip.”

And Wet’suwet’en land defender Sleydo’/ Molly Wickham has also posted on Instagram: “Please share widely and support grassroots Indigenous resistance to the PRGT pipeline. We know what’s coming and they need all the support to get ahead of this!”

Calls for the C-IRG to be disbanded

There are continuing concerns about the role the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) Community-Industry Response Group (C-IRG), now named the Critical Response Unit-British Columbia (CRU-BC), could have in the criminalization and repression of Indigenous on-the-ground resistance to the PRGT megaproject.

Photo: RCMP C-IRG officers during the November 2021 raid on Wet’suwet’en territory. Photo by Michael Toledano.

A year ago, in November 2023, the Gitxsan Huwilp Government stated: “Industry-led injunctions ordered by the BC Supreme Court Chief Justice to allow the looting of indigenous lands must stop. Further, the RCMP volunteering to deploy the [C-IRG] – which is under investigation for corruption – as a military solution to perpetrate industry greed must stop. For the RCMP to extinguish indigenous peoples’ fulsome rights on their lands, threaten our lives, terrorize our women and children, weaponize our land defense is indefensible.”

Gitanyow Hereditary Chief Gamlakyeltxw/ Wil Marsden has also previously commented: “We saw years and years of fighting [on Wet’suwet’en territory], the [RCMP C-IRG] police violence, and even the company [TC Energy/Coastal GasLink] with harassment and surveillance of land defenders. We don’t want none of that to happen here. We have a plan for everything we’re doing and we prefer to reconcile with B.C. and Canada.”

On a PBI-Canada webinar this past March, Tara Marsden, Wilp sustainability director for Gitanyow Hereditary Chiefs, noted: “Our learning is that consent only works when we say yes, if we say no, even if we say no with science behind us, and our knowledge and our laws behind us, then we will be met with force from the C-IRG, from militarized invasion and occupation and intimidation and harassment.”

We continue to follow this.

First posted on November 25, 2024.

An organizer with the Palestinian Youth Movement (PYM) was arrested in Ottawa on the morning of Sunday November 24.

Instagram video of arrest and reading of charges.

The Ottawa Police Service (OPS) media release states: “She has been charged with public mischief X2, obstruction of police, counsel an uncommitted indictable offence of mischief and unlawful assembly.”

For more, see the Criminal Code of Canada sections on public mischief (140), offences relating to public or peace officer (129), counselling offence that is not committed (464), mischief (430) and unlawful assembly (63).

Additional reading: A fifth person charged following downtown pro-Palestinian protest on Nov. 18 (Ottawa Citizen, November 24, 2024).

CCLA: “Protests are intended to cause disruption”

The Canadian Civil Liberties Association (CCLA) has previously commented: “It’s worth remembering that protests are intended to cause disruption and this is protected activity in a democracy. Strong protections for the right to protest are essential to meaningful and informed political debate and discussion.”

Internationally, the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the rights to freedom of peaceful assembly and of association (Harvard Law School graduate Maina Kiai) has also previously commented: “’The free flow of traffic should not automatically take precedence over freedom of peaceful assembly’. In this regard, the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights has indicated that ‘the competent institutions of the State have a duty to design operating plans and procedures that will facilitate the exercise of the right of assembly … [including] rerouting pedestrian and vehicular traffic in a certain area’.”

In this broader respect, the OPS has only stated: “We recognize the concerns raised by members of the community regarding these arrests. The OPS is committed to ensuring community safety and respecting the lawful right to protest. Any charges related to demonstrations are carefully considered with this balance, and we are focused on balancing the need for public safety with fostering trust and understanding.”

What is criminalization?

Lawyers Without Borders Canada has explained: “Simply put, criminalization is the wrongful use of criminal law. Based on the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights’ interpretation, this means the ‘adoption and misapplication of the law to the detriment of HRDs [human rights defenders] in order to obstruct their activities’ (IACHR, Criminalization of the Work of Human Rights Defenders, 2015, para. 11). It manipulates the punitive power of the State and ultimately, this undermines the rule of law and democracy as it wrongfully persecutes dissidents of the State both legally and politically.”

Peace Brigades International-United Kingdom has also noted: “Criminalisation carries an implicit warning to any defender working on politically or economically sensitive issues that they too might be targeted. Others might think twice before speaking out. Vulnerable groups and individuals who depend on HRDs may also be less inclined to stand up for their rights, fearing legal or violent reprisals to their actions.”

International court decisions

On January 26, 2024, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) found that it is “plausible” that Israel has committed acts that violate the Genocide Convention in the context of Israel’s bombardment of the Gaza Strip.

On July 19, 2024, the ICJ also ruled that Israel’s occupation of the Gaza Strip and the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, is unlawful, along with the associated settlement regime, annexation and use of natural resources.

And on November 21, 2024, the International Criminal Court (ICC) issued an arrest warrant for Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu, along with Israel’s former defence minister Yoav Gallant, over alleged war crimes in Gaza.

Given international court rulings back the concerns made by the Palestinian Youth Movement at their weekly mobilizations, that these mobilizations have been allowed to be on the streets for more than a year, and the ICC arrest warrants were issued just three days before the OPS arrested the PYM organizer, it is unclear why the OPS has escalated so dramatically and restrictively its policing of PYM mobilizations.

Escalation

The planned march on Monday November 18 to the offices of weapons companies (that arguably are violating the Genocide Convention and Arms Trade Treaty) and the march of Saturday November 23, saw a significant increase in the number of police present, including Ontario Provincial Police (OPP) brought in from out of town.

Questions remain for community members as to why this apparently premeditated and planned escalation has taken place, and whether there are state and corporate actors (with ideological motivations or economic interests) involved in directing this escalation.

There may also be questions about regulations regarding the OPS use of drones, the filming of the protest by OPS officers, and the deployment of an OPP officer who appeared to be armed with an Anti-Riot Weapon Enfield (ARWEN) that is capable of firing tear-gas canisters and large, 37-millimetre plastic bullets.

In 2020, Michelle Bachelet, then the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, wrote: “To be clear, and as the Human Rights Committee has indicated in its general comment on the right to life, even less-lethal weapons [that would include the ARWEN, a supposedly “less-lethal launcher” developed in the UK)] must be employed only when they are subject to strict requirements of necessity and proportionality, in situations in which other less harmful measures have proven to be or are clearly ineffective to address the threat.”

While the ARWEN was not employed/fired, it was deployed (made visible) in a situation that arguably did not meet “necessity and proportionality”.

Police horses by April

As the Palestinian solidarity mobilizations continue, the imminent use of police horses by the OPS is also a concern.

This week, CTV News reported: “Ottawa’s police chief [Eric Stubbs] says the new Mounted Patrol Unit will be a ‘game changer’ for the service in 2025… The Ottawa Police Service expects the first four horses to arrive in the spring [by April 1], with four more horses joining the unit in late 2025 or early 2026.”

That article also notes: “Stubbs says there have been recent protests in Ottawa where he thought a Mounted Patrol Unit would help provide a ‘wedge to separate groups’ or assist with the movement of people.”

The Manchester, UK-based Omega Research Foundation has stated: “Any decision to deploy mounted police must be in-line with the international human rights standards of proportionality and necessity and it must be remembered that horses can react unpredictably when frightened or over stimulated, which may lead to nearby protesters or bystanders being injured. Certain groups may be particularly vulnerable when horses are used to disperse a crowd, particularly those with limited mobility, slow reaction times, or impaired sight (including persons with disabilities, elderly persons, children, pregnant people, for example).”

The United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) has also expressed this same concern: “People with limited mobility or slow reaction time, including children, may be particularly vulnerable when horses are used to disperse a crowd.”

Video shared by Horizon Ottawa.

This past week, in response to related concerns expressed at the Ottawa Police Service finance and audit committee, Ottawa City Councillor Cathy Curry stated: “I guess I could argue that people could just move out of the way.”

We continue to follow this.

Video and photo: Solidarity rally outside the OPS Elgin station after the arrest of the PYM organizer.

PYM post.

Further reading: Arrest of Palestinian solidarity activists in Ottawa raises concerns about repression of protests against weapons companies (November 21, 2024).

First posted on November 27, 2024.

Video still: A military helicopter takes Ferney Salcedo, Yulivel Leal and four other social leaders from the villages of Venturosa and Platanales following their arrest on November 27, 2018. Video by Prensa Libre Casanare.

Today is the 6^th anniversary of the arrest of eight community members who were protesting the Canadian oil company Frontera Energy Ltd. in Colombia.

El Espectador has reported: “On November 27, 2018, at 2:45 in the morning, an operation of 200 men, between members of the Police and the National Army, who landed in two helicopters, captured them in San Luis de Palenque.”

Significantly, as has been highlighted at the United Nations by Special Rapporteur Michel Forst, just a few days before that operation, on November 16 and November 19, 2018, “Frontera Energy signed two agreements with the Ministry of Defence for a total of US$1,343,106 to secure army protection for its activities.”

Yulivel Leal shared on a webinar organized by PBI-Canada: “On November 27, 2018, I was captured in my home, the judge ordered house arrest. I lived under the control of an electronic device for 22 months.”

Photo: Yulivel Leal under house arrest and wearing an electronic monitoring device on her ankle, October 2019. Photo by Comité de Solidaridad Internacionalista de Zaragoza.

Her husband Ferney Salcedo was held in prison for 500 days without trial (first at a prison in Yopal then in La Picota almost 500 kilometres away after he demanded more dignified conditions for prisoners).

Forst has expressed concern “at the apparent connection between Frontera Energy, the army’s 16th brigade [a unit that protects oil operations] and the Attorney General’s Support Office in this criminalization and the possible impact of the agreement between Ecopetrol S.A. and the Attorney General’s Office on the situation.”

PBI-Canada met in-person with Ferney, Yulivel and other community members on July 1, 2022; organized a webinar with them on October 11, 2022; helped amplify video-messages to the Frontera virtual annual meeting of shareholders on May 18, 2023; organized meetings with Canadian civil society and a Member of Parliament; and have posted numerous articles and updates about their ongoing situation.

We have also been trying for more than a year to get the necessary visas to bring community members and their PBI-Colombia accompanied defenders to Canada to help share the story of their criminalization with Canadians.

As of July 2024, the judicial process against the community members was in the oral trial stage with six witnesses having testified and 40 more still pending. Of the more than 100 proposed pieces of evidence, only four had been incorporated. Six years after the arrests, the judicialization continues with no immediate end in sight.

We remain concerned about the past arbitrary detention of the community members and their prolonged judicialization, call on Canadian companies not to enter into “cooperation agreements” with Colombian security forces, support calls for domestic and international mechanisms that would mean greater accountability for transnational corporations to the communities they impact, and advocate for a credible Canadian Ombudsperson for Responsible Enterprise (CORE) that would have legally enforceable powers to compel evidence and testimony from corporations.

We will continue to follow this.

NOTE: If you normally mail a year-end donation to support our work, there are ways to continue that support before December 31. You can now make a donation by Interac e-Transfer by emailing  your donation to direction@pbicanada.org. In the “Message” field, please note if you would like a charitable tax receipt and include your mailing address. As before, you can also make a donation via CanadaHelps.org by clicking here, as well as directly on our website by clicking here.

First posted on November 22, 2024.

Image: Logo of COP30 in Brazil.

The United Nations Conference of Parties (COP) 29 climate conference is scheduled later today (November 22) in Baku, Azerbaijan.

On September 10, 2024, Global Witness highlighted: “At least 1,500 defenders have been killed since the adoption of the Paris Agreement on 12 December 2015” at the conclusion of the COP21 climate conference.

More than five years ago the United Nations Human Rights Council affirmed: “Human rights defenders, including environmental human rights defenders, must be ensured a safe and enabling environment to undertake their work free from hindrance and insecurity, in recognition of their important role in supporting States to fulfil their obligations under the Paris Agreement.”

And yet this 42-word sentence has still not made its way into the final text of any of the subsequent COP climate conference final texts.

An article by Cape Town, South Africa-based Natural Justice on a COP29 side event held on November 20 titled “Recognizing, Protecting, and Empowering Environmental Defenders” seems to suggest there may have been a moment of progress.

That article notes: “This is the first time in COP history that the COP has included language on defenders, but regrettably the reference in the gender text is bracketed along with other refences to human rights.”

The “draft negotiating texts”, including on “COP agenda item 14 Gender and climate change”, released yesterday (November 21) do not appear to include any reference to environmental defenders.

Center for International Environmental Law tweeted on November 21: “The new text of the Gender Work Program at #COP29 is glaringly incomplete without … protection of women environmental human rights defenders. This is unacceptable!”

On November 16, Camilla Pollera of the Center for International Environmental Law had commented: “The blatant attempts to eliminate reference to the protection of environmental human rights defenders and human rights is especially alarming.” Floridea Di Como of CambiaMO also noted that references to land and environmental human rights defenders were being taken out of the text.

At the PBI-Canada-organized webinar on the COP16 biodiversity conference a month ago, UN Special Rapporteur Michel Forst suggested that there are States that block the inclusion of this reference.

Forst stated: “There are people who are willing to push for good results and at the same time we know that we also have people who are not our allies who are pushing also for counter-results and trying to delete paragraphs and good wording that some of us, some of them, would like to introduce.”

He further noted: “[Many participants] feel not respected and their voices are not heard when they try to introduce new language in the outcome document, when they are meeting with delegations to try to push for wording, then we have the same usual suspects who block the discussions.” 

Despite these very real obstacles, Peace Brigades International is committing to intervene in collaboration with the defenders we accompany at the United Nations COP30 climate conference that will take place from November 10 to 21, 2025 in Belém, Pará, Brazil. Stay tuned for updates on this work.

NOTE: If you normally mail a year-end donation to support our work, there are ways to continue that support before December 31. You can now make a donation by Interac e-Transfer by emailing  your donation to direction@pbicanada.org. In the “Message” field, please note if you would like a charitable tax receipt and include your mailing address. As before, you can also make a donation via CanadaHelps.org by clicking here, as well as directly on our website by clicking here.

First posted on October 23, 2024.

Photo from November 2023 by EFE from Observatory of Mining Conflicts in Latin America (OCMAL) website.

Peace Brigades International-Canada is one of 122 organizations to have signed a letter to Mary Ng, the Canadian Minister of International Commerce and Economic Development, to withdraw her support for First Quantum Minerals.

Photo: Mary Ng.

Thirty-nine days of protests began on October 20, 2023, following the passing of a 20-to-40-year mining contract between the government of Panama and Vancouver-based First Quantum Minerals, the operator of Cobre Panamá, the largest open-pit copper mine in Central America, located a short distance from the western coast and within a protected area of the Mesoamerican Biological Corridor.

Photos: The Cobre Panamá mine (top, middle, bottom).

The letter highlights: “ A new report reveals disturbing details about the violence protesters faced during this time: a disproportionate use of force, police brutality, tear gas, killings, and the arbitrary arrest of more than 1500 people – with some 23 continuing to face legal charges as part of an ongoing effort to criminalize social movement leaders as they denounce widespread environmental damage and water contamination from mining operations.”

The letter further notes: “Following the cancellation of First Quantum’s contract, the Canadian government was vocal in its support for the company.”

Instead of continuing this, PBI-Canada and the signatories to the letter are calling on Minister Ng to “implement the guidelines outlined in ‘Voices at Risk’ through the Embassy in Panama, and offer support to environmental defenders criminalized for protesting Canadian company abuses and defending their rights.”

Signatories to the letter include 32 Panamanian groups, as well as MiningWatch Canada, the Mining Injustice Solidarity Network (MISN), the Canadian Network on Corporate Accountability (CNCA), Community Peacemakers Teams, Rights Action, the Business and Human Rights Resource Centre (BHRRC), Salva la Selva- España and the PBI-Colombia accompanied Colectivo de Abogados y Abogadas José Alvear Restrepo (CAJAR).

The letter to Minister Ng can be read here, the full list of signatories is here.

The 47-page report Human Rights Violations, Abuses and Incidents Recorded in the Context of the Protests Against the Mining Contract in Panama can also be read in Spanish here.

Video still (El Pais, October 26, 2023): “A contract law allows the subsidiary of a Canadian mining company to exploit it…”

NOTE: If you normally mail a year-end donation to support our work, there are ways to continue that support before December 31. You can now make a donation by Interac e-Transfer by emailing  your donation to direction@pbicanada.org. In the “Message” field, please note if you would like a charitable tax receipt and include your mailing address. As before, you can also make a donation via CanadaHelps.org by clicking here, as well as directly on our website by clicking here.

First posted on November 19, 2024.

Peace Brigades International-Canada attended the Peace Brigades International General Assembly in Lisbon, Portugal this past November 11-13.

The assembly brought together 35+ people to discuss a Global Strategic Plan that will inform our work through to 2030 and to debate and reach consensus on numerous proposals, including our proposal to explore the formation of a PBI-Turtle Island initiative to accompany Indigenous land defenders.

The meeting brought together representatives of the teams who physically accompany defenders in Colombia, Guatemala, Mexico and Honduras.

There were also representatives of the Kenya, Nepal, Nicaragua and Indonesia teams that support defenders.

Along with PBI-Canada, there were also representatives from the PBI teams in Germany, Spain, Catalonia, Belgium, France, the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, the United States, Switzerland, Norway and Italy.

And along with staff from the International Office in Brussels there were key members of the International Council, essentially PBI’s global Board.

While the assembly was a forum to discuss the Global Strategic Plan noted above and organizational and administrative issues, and to connect in-person to further enable the online meeting spaces that occur throughout the year, it all remained very much grounded in our shared purpose of ensuring the protection of human rights defenders who face tremendous risks because of the work they do.

At PBI-Canada our next step now is to write an operational plan for 2025 based on the approved Global Strategic Plan and to further develop the concept of a new Peace Brigades International-Turtle Island initiative.

Stay tuned!

NOTE: If you normally mail a year-end donation to support our work, there are ways to continue that support before December 31. You can now make a donation by Interac e-Transfer by emailing  your donation to direction@pbicanada.org. In the “Message” field, please note if you would like a charitable tax receipt and include your mailing address. As before, you can also make a donation via CanadaHelps.org by clicking here, as well as directly on our website by clicking here.