Alarm has been raised about the mounting pressures on organizers in Canada, after the sentencing of three land defenders. The activists were convicted amidst a spate of new laws curbing Indigenous-led protest under the banner of economic growth and a trade war with the US.
Molly Ann Wickham of the Wet’suwet’en Nation, Shaylynn Sampson of the Gitxsan Nation and Corey Jayohcee Jocko, a Mohawk from Akwesasne, were arrested in November 2021 during a police raid on unceded Wet’suwet’en territory. They had joined protests opposing the Coastal GasLink (CGL) pipeline, a project to export fracked gas that Wet’suwet’en leaders say threatens their lands and waterways. They were found guilty on 17 October of violating a court injunction barring land defenders from protesting near the pipeline construction site.
