Amnesty International Declares Its First ‘Prisoner of Conscience’ in Canada

Amnesty International has designated a Wet’suwet’en Hereditary Chief its first “prisoner of conscience” held in Canada.

Dsta’hyl, a wing chief of the nation’s Likhts’amisyu Clan, was sentenced earlier this month to 60 days of house arrest for his actions in opposing the Coastal GasLink pipeline. At his trial last year, the Wet’suwet’en leader argued that he was upholding the nation’s traditional trespass law at the time of his arrest.

From his home in Witset, a Wet’suwet’en community 400 kilometres west of Prince George, B.C., he told The Tyee that he got the call two weeks ago that Amnesty International’s head office in London intended to pursue his case as a prisoner of conscience.

“It’s quite exciting,” Dsta’hyl said. “Anything that is going to bring recognition to the Wet’suwet’en is going to be really beneficial to us.”

Amnesty International said that, in 2020, it estimated that it advocates for about about 150 prisoners of conscience annually around the world. It added that about 8,000 people have been designated as Amnesty prisoners of conscience in the organization’s six-decade history.

An unofficial list shows many of the detainees are in the Middle East, Russia and China, though it also includes a handful of people in the United States, one in Australia and one in Great Britain —Wikileaks founder Julian Assange, who was released in June.

In a statement issued today, Ana Piquer, Americas Director at Amnesty International, called on governments to “hold up, not lock up, Indigenous land defenders,” who, the statement said, are “on the front lines of climate change.”

“The Canadian state has unjustly criminalized and confined Chief Dsta’hyl for defending the land and rights of the Wet’suwet’en people,” Piquer said. “As a result, Canada joins the shameful list of countries where prisoners of conscience remain under house arrest or behind bars.”

The company has pointed to agreements signed with five of the nation’s six band councils as evidence of support for the project. However, the nation’s hereditary leadership has maintained that its traditional governance system, which is broken into clans and house groups, has jurisdiction over the territory not band councils, which were formed under the Indian Act.

It’s something they say was affirmed by the Delgamuukw-Gisday’wa court decision. In 1997, the federal court of appeal determined that the nations’ Aboriginal title had never been extinguished. The court left it up to B.C. and the nations to reach an agreement over land use. But that never happened.

In December 2018, the B.C. Supreme Court issued an injunction to Coastal GasLink that restricts anyone from blocking pipeline work camps or access roads on Wet’suwet’en territory. The RCMP would go on to arrest about 75 people under Coastal GasLink’s injunction.

Crown prosecutors have proceeded with criminal contempt charges in 20 of those cases. Some people have since pleaded guilty and others have had their charges dropped, according to Amnesty International.

A handful have gone to court.

Following a trial in November, B.C. Supreme Court Justice Michael Tammen found Sabina Dennis not guilty after determining she had intended to play a peaceful role when she stepped onto a bridge covered by the injunction on Nov. 18, 2021.

In January, Tammen determined there was sufficient evidence to convict three Indigenous land defenders who were arrested on Nov. 19, 2021. The court is now considering an application by Sleydo’ Molly Wickham, Corey Jocko and Shaylynn Sampson to dismiss the charges based on police conduct during the arrests.

Amnesty International said it has been documenting human rights violations experienced by Wet’suwet’en land defenders since 2020. The human rights organization published the 94-page report, “Criminalization, Intimidation and Harassment of Wet’suwet’en Land Defenders,” which outlined how the pipeline company failed to properly consult Wet’suwet’en hereditary leaders and then obtained the injunction to remove those who blocked access to the pipeline route.

The organization also sent an international delegation to Wet’suwet’en territory in June for the application hearing in Sleydo’, Jocko and Sampson’s cases, but the case was adjourned until September.

Dsta’hyl is the first Wet’suwet’en land defender to be sentenced for breaching Coastal GasLink’s injunction. At his trial last year, the court heard how the wing chief interacted with the pipeline company’s workers and security personnel in Likhts’amisyu territory over a 10-day period in October 2021. He and other Likhts’amisyu Hereditary Chiefs testified that they were upholding their duty to preserve and protect Wet’suwet’en territory, or yintah, by enforcing a traditional trespass law.

Dsta’hyl had been designated an enforcement officer by other Likhts’amisyu Clan members and was sent to evict Coastal GasLink workers, according to evidence presented at his trial. He and others blocked access to a work camp and “seized and rendered inoperable” multiple pieces of machinery by cutting electrical wires and removing batteries, the court heard.

Dsta’hyl’s lawyer asked the judge to consider a novel defence. She argued that the wing chief was acting in accordance with an Indigenous legal order that coexists alongside colonial Canada law. Defence witnesses testified that Dsta’hyl’s approach was thought to be a “proportionate means of enforcing the law of trespass” meant to force Coastal GasLink into discussions with the Hereditary Chiefs and uphold Wet’suwet’en law.

But Tammen ruled in February that the traditional Wet’suwet’en trespass law “cannot comfortably co-exist” with the injunction issued by the B.C. Supreme Court. He added that even an argument made under Section 35 of the Constitution Act, which recognizes Indigenous rights, would have been unlikely to succeed “absent a proven claim of Aboriginal title to the land in question.”

Dsta’hyl said he is appealing his conviction.

At this month’s sentencing, Tammen acknowledged the broader conflict that led Dsta’hyl, whom he described as “a first offender of good character,” to be before the court. He acknowledged that colonial policies, like the Indian Act, have created division over who has authority to govern Wet’suwet’en traditional territory and the “frustration” that led to Dsta’hyl defying Coastal GasLink’s injunction.

Amnesty International describes a prisoner of conscience as “any person imprisoned or otherwise physically restricted… solely because of his/her political, religious or other conscientiously held beliefs” and other defining features, such as ethnic origin, sex, colour or sexual orientation. Only those who have not used or advocated for violence qualify for the designation, it said.

When declaring a person a prisoner of conscience, Amnesty International demands the person’s immediate and unconditional release, the organization added.

At today’s announcement, Dsta’hyl said that the B.C. and Canadian governments have continued to extract resources from Wet’suwet’en territory despite the nation’s outstanding land claims.

“They’ve already taken billions of dollars’ worth of resources off of our land and it’s up to us as Wet’suwet’en people to nurture the land back to life,” he said, adding that attempts to protect the territory led to RCMP sending in specialized policing units using “lethal-force overwatch” — snipers armed with rifles — to arrest land defenders.

“We’ve taken the moral high road. We decided to fight this fight with big spirits as opposed to big guns,” he added.

Dsta’hyl was diagnosed with Stage 4 lymphoma last year and his sentence conditions allow him to make daily trips to the local aquatic centre as a therapeutic remedy. He said he’s otherwise keeping busy within a 10-metre perimeter of his home — including by gardening and helping to process salmon, and doing mechanical work on his vehicles.

He’s also been meeting with his lawyer about his appeal, which was filed just over a week ago, and he continues to be involved in clan business, he said.

“Like my mother said when I took the name,” Dsta’hyl said, “‘The moment when you accept the name, no longer are you your own person. You now belong to your people. Only do things in the best interest of your people.’”