[News] Gidimt’en Lawsuit - RCMP Continues Surveillance and Harassment of Land Defenders

Wed Sep 21 18:46:05 EDT 2022

Gidimt'en Yintah Access 
<https://a1e0.engage.squarespace-mail.com/r?m=632b718f38ff0e07e830a1a9&u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.yintahaccess.com%2F%3Fss_source%3Dsscampaigns%26ss_campaign_id%3D632b7090838f213a8c668e5a%26ss_email_id%3D632b718f38ff0e07e830a1a9%26ss_campaign_name%3DCivil%2BSuit%2BUpdate-%2BRCMP%2B%26ss_campaign_sent_date%3D2022-09-21T20%253A18%253A42Z&w=5c51ebf73e2d0957ca117eb5&l=en-US&s=wQ97Zbx1JvkDIN2RRu39mKAmA9c%3D> 

    Civil Suit Update- RCMP

Yintah Access — September 21, 2022

*RCMP Refuses to Respond to Gidimt’en Lawsuit, Continue Surveillance and 
Harassment of Land Defenders as Coastal GasLink Poised to Drill Headwaters*

It has been three months since we filed our lawsuit suing the RCMP and 
C-IRG, Minister of Justice for B.C., Coastal Gaslink Pipeline LTD., and 
private security contractor Forsythe for loss and damages.

*Over these three months, the RCMP have refused to respond to our 
lawsuit. So, our lawyers have provided legal notice that we intend to 
apply for a default decision against the RCMP. *

Coastal GasLink and Forsythe have responded to our lawsuit, basically 
denying their violence and refusing to provide any justification for 
their constant surveillance and harassment on the Yintah.

In the colonial legal system, a lawsuit for loss or damages caused to 
another person or another person's property is known as a civil claim/./ 
In June 2022, Janet Wiliams and Lawrence Bazil on behalf of themselves, 
and Molly Wickham on behalf of herself as well as the Gidimt’en Clan of 
the Wet’suwet’en Nation filed a notice of claim in BC’s Supreme Court to 
start the civil legal action. In this lawsuit, we are holding the RCMP 
and C-IRG, Minister of Justice for B.C., Coastal Gaslink, and Forsythe 
accountable for invading our privacy, intimidation, intentional 
infliction of mental distress, malicious and wilful misconduct, assault 
and battery, false arrest, trespass, violations of the Charter, and more.

We know that this legal system is not built for us. But because we are 
right and our ancestors are with us, we have won in their courts before. 
The authority of the Wet'suwet'en hereditary house and clan system was 
verified in the historic /Delgamuukw 
<https://a1e0.engage.squarespace-mail.com/r?m=632b718f38ff0e07e830a1a9&u=https%3A%2F%2Fscc-csc.lexum.com%2Fscc-csc%2Fscc-csc%2Fen%2Fitem%2F1569%2Findex.do&w=5c51ebf73e2d0957ca117eb5&l=en-US&s=Af6TB4oZHiHDNcCRX2rj8JGSdRo%3D>/ 
and /Red Top/ court decisions. Our Hereditary Chiefs have maintained 
their use and occupancy of their lands and hereditary governance system 
despite generations of colonial policies and big industries that aim to 
remove us from this land, assimilate our people, annihilate our culture, 
and ban our governing system.

We will not let the RCMP and C-IRG, B.C, Coastal GasLink, and Forsythe 
go unchallenged in their attempts to clear the lands for this pipeline 
project and their capitalist, colonial extraction. Every day, the 
government, industry, and police are invading our Yintah. Coastal 
GasLink’s equipment is currently in a position to drill beneath the 
sacred headwaters of Wedzin Kwa.

It is the resistance of our people and our many allies that has delayed 
the pipeline construction for the past several years. Under ‘Anuc 
niwh’it’en (Wet’suwet’en law) all Hereditary Chiefs of the five clans of 
the Wet’suwet’en have unanimously opposed all pipeline proposals and 
have not provided free, prior, and informed consent to Coastal Gaslink 
to drill on unceded and surrendered Wet’suwet’en lands. They are trying 
to drill under the Wedzin Kwa river, the sacred headwaters that feeds 
all of Wet’suwet’en territory and gives life to our nation. The 
pipeline, spanning 670 kilometers, will transport fracked gas to the 
proposed LNG Canada processing plant, which is the largest single 
private sector infrastructure project and one of the largest energy 
investments in Canadian history.

When we rise up to defend the Yintah, we are criminalized. For many 
months and many years, we have face militarized raids of our village 
sites on the Yintah. In three large-scale police actions in January 
2019, February 2020, and November 2021, a total of 74 people were 
arrested and detained, including legal observers and members of the 
media. Since February 2022, RCMP and C-IRG have entered our village 
sites and home sites multiples times a day – hundreds of times in total. 
RCMP and C-IRG have continuously harassed and intimidated our people and 
our guests and disrupted our cultural practices and ceremonies. This 
affects our rights to hunt, trap, fish, gather, and conduct ceremony on 
our Yintah. They have shone high beams and spotlights into our 
residential buildings and awakened sleeping residents. The RCMP and 
C-IRG have also demanded our identification and arrested us, including 
with the use of pepper spray. The RCMP and C-IRG have illegally seized 
and destroyed our Gidimt’en property. They have committed assault and 
battery, and prohibited and blocked our movement on our own lands.

This is a 24/7 campaign 
<https://a1e0.engage.squarespace-mail.com/r?m=632b718f38ff0e07e830a1a9&u=https%3A%2F%2Fyoutu.be%2FSxVFcXXrmAY&w=5c51ebf73e2d0957ca117eb5&l=en-US&s=1Sn46w1-PwcUk42jLYngXHT-2jM%3D>of 
surveillance and terror. The very creation and mandate of C-IRG in this 
province is to protect corporate resource and energy sectors by quashing 
and criminalizing Indigenous resistance. But we will never stop 
defending our Yintah. We live out our laws and cultural practices on our 
lands. Our medicines, our berries, our food, the animals, our water, our 
culture are all here since time immemorial. We will never allow our 
sovereignty to be violated.

https://youtu.be/SxVFcXXrmAY 
<https://a1e0.engage.squarespace-mail.com/r?m=632b718f38ff0e07e830a1a9&u=https%3A%2F%2Fyoutu.be%2FSxVFcXXrmAY&w=5c51ebf73e2d0957ca117eb5&l=en-US&s=1Sn46w1-PwcUk42jLYngXHT-2jM%3D> 

View original post 
<https://a1e0.engage.squarespace-mail.com/r?m=632b718f38ff0e07e830a1a9&u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.yintahaccess.com%2Fnews%2F2022%2F9%2F21%2Fcivil-suit-update-rcmp%3Fss_source%3Dsscampaigns%26ss_campaign_id%3D632b7090838f213a8c668e5a%26ss_email_id%3D632b718f38ff0e07e830a1a9%26ss_campaign_name%3DCivil%2BSuit%2BUpdate-%2BRCMP%2B%26ss_campaign_sent_date%3D2022-09-21T20%253A18%253A42Z&w=5c51ebf73e2d0957ca117eb5&l=en-US&s=3DLYbYaor6iuyE6GVAtamiNZRAs%3D>

Gidimt'en Yintah Access 
<https://a1e0.engage.squarespace-mail.com/r?m=632b718f38ff0e07e830a1a9&u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.yintahaccess.com%2F%3Fss_source%3Dsscampaigns%26ss_campaign_id%3D632b7090838f213a8c668e5a%26ss_email_id%3D632b718f38ff0e07e830a1a9%26ss_campaign_name%3DCivil%2BSuit%2BUpdate-%2BRCMP%2B%26ss_campaign_sent_date%3D2022-09-21T20%253A18%253A42Z&w=5c51ebf73e2d0957ca117eb5&l=en-US&s=wQ97Zbx1JvkDIN2RRu39mKAmA9c%3D> 

Yintah Access, 2950 Jutland Rd, Victoria BC, Canada

Powered by Squarespace 
<https://a1e0.engage.squarespace-mail.com/r?m=632b718f38ff0e07e830a1a9&u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.squarespace.com%3Fchannel%3Dproduct_refer%26subchannel%3Dcustomer%26source%3Demail_campaigns_button%26campaign%3D5c51ebf73e2d0957ca117eb5%26utm_medium%3Dproduct_refer%26utm_source%3Demail_campaigns_button%26ss_source%3Dsscampaigns%26ss_campaign_id%3D632b7090838f213a8c668e5a%26ss_email_id%3D632b718f38ff0e07e830a1a9%26ss_campaign_name%3DCivil%2BSuit%2BUpdate-%2BRCMP%2B%26ss_campaign_sent_date%3D2022-09-21T20%253A18%253A42Z&w=5c51ebf73e2d0957ca117eb5&l=en-US&s=qx9DZlaX1ghHS1LWI0HGIgJczUU%3D> 

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://freedomarchives.org/pipermail/news_freedomarchives.org/attachments/20220921/54388f98/attachment.htm>