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Day 200 – 1492 Land Back Lane Update from Skyler

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Feb 052021

From 1492 Land Back Lane (Twitter)

When Haudenosaunee Land Defenders are required to defy injunctions to protect our territories, we are arrested, charged, threatened and incarcerated.

It is a crime to fight for our lands, but we are still fighting. Land defense criminalization is meant to divide families, nations, and allies, in order to scare us into submission.

August 5th and October 22nd are days that loom heavy in everyone’s minds. Days where we were shot at, tasered and dragged from our lands. The resilience of so many is amazing. Theses are days in the last 200 that will not be forgotten.

The OPP have tried consistently to divide our community. To try to hinder the support in whatever way they can. You have all made it resoundingly clear that we will not play into their game any longer. This is Haudenosaunee Territory!!!

Looking back and seeing all that we’ve endured together. All the families and friends that have lifted us up in those moments. Remembering all the laughter and joy. The building of a community. The unity of nations. What a gift we’ve been given.

Roads, highways and railways that criss cross our lands will not be used to inflict more violence on our people. All of this colonial infrastructure that has been used to oppress us and exploit our lands.

We have an opportunity to move forward. But we have to do it together. All of the hurt that we’ve endured as nations. The trauma that has been inflicted on us. To give our children and grandchildren more then we had, we must stand united.

To my brothers and sisters. Folks that have given all of themselves for all of us. Risked life and limb, freedoms and careers. Given so much time and energy. People that have had to bare the weight of heavy bail and release conditions. We have so much love and gratitude for you.

There is nothing these courts and cops or racist politicians can do with their guns and jails to turn our backs on future generations. These lands are only borrowed from those generations to come. It is our obligation to hold these lands for them.

Anti-Curfew March Reportback

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Jan 202021

From No Borders Media (Facebook)

Over one-hundred protesters gathered in east-end Montreal earlier today, to express opposition to the government-imposed pandemic curfew as well as to highlight measures to combat the pandemic rooted in solidarity and support for the most marginalized of society. The demonstration, which successfully marched through the streets of Hochelaga, emphasized the cruel negative impacts of the curfew and related police harassment on the homeless, sex workers, drug users, undocumented workers and others.

The demo organizers — an ad- hoc group called Pas de solution policière à la crise sanitaire / No police solution to a health crisis — emphasized that the protest was in favour of COVID-19 mitigation measures, but rejected the curfew as authoritarian and detrimental to an effective pandemic response. The organizers also made a point of rejecting the involvement and presence of anyone associated with far-right, anti-science, conspiracy theorists, highlighting instead a social justice-rooted pro-science approach to the pandemic (exemplified by one sign at the protest reading: “pro-science, pro-mask, pro-vaccine, anti-curfew”).

There was a large police presence at the demo, including riot police in full gear who were deployed despite the demonstration being family-friendly and respecting health measures. Protest organizers provided masks to participants, and protesters practiced physical distancing. Still, at the beginning of the demonstration at Place Valois, riot police wrongly detained one man for allegedly not wearing a mask; the man was not part of the demonstration, and was clearly in distress while waiting for a friend in the public square. Masks are not required outdoors in Quebec during the pandemic, unless participating in a demonstration, which is an irony for many protesters who prefer masks at demos anyways. Another man was improperly detained by riot police for not wearing his mask properly (it was briefly under his nose), and was not given a chance to correct it before being marched away by an entourage of riot cops.

These two detentions (and likely resulting tickets at the cost of several hundred dollars) were just more examples of the structural inability of the Montreal police to exercise the “discretion” and “good judgement” that Montreal Mayor Valerie Plante, Quebec Security Minister Geneviève Guilbault and Quebec Premier François Legault naively think they do. During the pandemic, Montreal police have ticketed homeless persons for alleged health violations, and during the curfew they have asked to illegally search essential workers, as well as rejecting clear documentation from other essential workers that they can travel to-and-from work and issuing $1000+ tickets. The riot police also evicted a homeless camp in Hochelaga (Campement Notre-Dame) back in December. There are likely many more cases of police abuse during the curfew, and the pandemic in general, that have yet to emerge. The structural police abuses highlight again the necessity to Defund The Police — particularly a police force that has normalized showing up to social protests in full riot gear — and instead allocate resources and funding to health, education and social services.

Despite the police actions, today’s demonstration was successful. In conjunction with public statements by Montreal organizations in opposition to the curfew, and a press conference to denounce the curfew this past Monday by several community organizations, the protest was a modest first step towards taking up more public space — as a movement that is for social justice and pro-science — to oppose authoritarian measures like the curfew while promoting solidarity-based solutions to mitigating the pandemic. It’s a positive step away from the far-right, anti-science conspiracy theorists who are oblivious to social justice and solidarity, and perhaps a small step towards future strategic curfew defiance, if the curfew is extended later into February.

Letter from a Former Prisoner

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Jan 202021

We received the message that follows by email. We’re publishing it with the permission of the author.

Hello,

I don’t know if it’s your organization that passed in front of the Federal Training Center detention center (CFF600) on Montée St-François on December 31st, 2019, but if it was, I’d like to thank you.

I was in prison at the time, in the condos that face Montée St-François. I could see you from the window of the living area and from my cell. For that moment, you made me forget that I was incarcerated, and I felt important and alive. Knowing that people on the outside were thinking of me and traveling for me did me good.

I’d like to be informed of any other demonstration concerning detention centers or for immigration (where I worked as a prisoner).

I regret not joining this year as I would have liked to participate, I should have gone anyway.

Thank you a lot for your time!!

Yannick, finally almost free!!!! (I’m in a halfway house but will be home soon)

No Police-Based Solution to the Health Crisis!

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Jan 112021

Anonymous submission to MTL Counter-info

Montreal, January 9, 2021

Today at 8 p.m., for the first time in our history, a province-wide curfew will be put in place. After ten months of a health crisis, our government has once again opted for a police-based solution. With alarms, sirens and flashing lights, the police will announce the time of its reign every night, at least for the next month. This strategy of intimidation and fear implemented won’t be sufficient to camouflage the amateurism and ineffectiveness of the caquiste method of pandemic management.

This “suburban government” has once again decided to make grim calculations of profitability rather than implement measures based on social justice and science. Curfews in such a context cannot be justified as a health measure. It is a choice that could prove not only ineffective, but downright dangerous. The disproportionate effect of the decision will harm the most vulnerable people in our society, those who already routinely suffer violence and brutality from our “law enforcement” authorities.

Unsurprisingly, this government is following the strategy adopted almost everywhere else, one that fits perfectly within the logic of neoliberal capitalism. There is always a lack of resources for public services, but money is never lacking when it comes to the expansion of the state apparatus of repression.

As many have already mentioned, the curfew will at most have a symbolic effect. In reality, we are witnessing the continued degradation of the social safety net and the fostering of a climate of fear. Instead of solidarity, and at a time when our mental health has already been weakened by nearly a year of uncertainty, the government is encouraging denunciation, the search for scapegoats and individual guilt, thus absolving itself of all responsibility. In Montreal, we will have nearly a hundred more cops, while what we are asking for is more psychologists and interveners. What effect will this increased surveillance have on our collective paranoia? Isn’t there any another alternative?

The radical left must not leave this fight in the hands of the right and its anti-scientific and individualistic discourse. In times of health crisis, we don’t have the luxury of blindly agreeing to repressive and counterproductive measures while contenting ourselves with preventive half measures. We have wasted too much time; it is now more than necessary to act in order to make sure that such a critical discourse is heard. We cannot afford complacency. In the face of the security overbid, it is our duty to propose another political project, one that leaves no one behind and which is based on rigorous scientific data.

In all neighbourhoods, by all means, our voices must be heard. No police solution to the pandemic should be accepted. Let’s resist the authoritarianism in place and to come, and let’s fight against curfew! We should not expect anything from a government led by a sinister paternalistic accountant blinded by power and only serving its political base.

Let’s not accept the prevailing defeatism, let’s prepare for spring!

Report-back from New Year’s Eve noise demo in so-called Montreal 2020

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Jan 032021

Anonymous submission to MTL Counter-info

Though there was no public call for a noise demonstration this year in so-called Montreal, around 50 people gathered anyways. We carried on the 10+ year tradition in this region of ringing in the new year alongside our friends and family on the inside. This year we only visited the minimum security federal prison for men in Laval, Quebec – called the Federal Training Centre Minimum. It’s the prison where we can always see people in the windows and where we know people inside can hear us and see all our fireworks. We banged on pots and pans, yelled greetings, and set off a record number of fireworks.

This year has been intense for a lot of people, but especially those in prison. Though the Federal Training Centre Minimum did not see a SARS-CoV2 outbreak behind bars, its twin institution – the Federal Training Centre Multi Level did, with one prisoner dying of Covid-19 there in the summer time. Prisoners at both institutions have endured months of lockdown, with no visits from family, no group activities, and limited or no access to the gym and the library. For these reasons, it was extra important for us to visit on New Year’s Eve. We needed prisoners to know that we have not forgotten them.

Solidarity to all prisoners, including in the migrant prisons! #FreeThemAll

Solidarity to all those facing repression for participating in the 2020 uprising in the wake of the deaths of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Rayshard Brooks, and more. #AmnestyForAll #BlackLivesMatter

For a world without prisons and the system that needs them.

BC: Power Lines Feeding LNG Facility Sabotaged — A statement from a few who aim to shut down Canada

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Dec 072020

Anonymous submission to North Shore Counter-info

We hear the cries for help coming out across this fake nation. We see Wetsuweten, Secwepemc, and Mohawk warriors and matriarchs standing firm against the fascist state that is trying to unabashedly and continually steal their land through state militia sponsored industrial projects. We see Mikmaq and Algonquin warriors and matriarchs standing strong in defense of their right to live free from the infrastructure of this false state.

We also see complacency across these lands. From the vacuum of territories that are not being contested, we hear nothing. The state sponsored industrial hydra knows no boundary, no territorial line, yet those who have not been physically confronted by this beast continue to remain silent. We see this militant passivity from ‘allies’ and ‘accomplices’ alike, and with that we have decided to act accordingly.

A few nights ago, during the supposed week of action, in a remote location somewhere between prince george and prince rupert, we took some bolts and cut the guy wires on a high transmission power line pylon. The line in question runs directly from fort saint john to kitimat, effectively distributing power from the site C dam to the LNG canada facility when they are both finished.

We see these as critical points of attack as they are both still in the construction phase. This is neither the first or last time you will hear from us, and we will not cease to act until the entire oil and gas industry that is decimating the lands that we and our comrades live on and come from, an industry built entirely on the backs of indigenous populations across Turtle Island, has found itself crumbling at the foundation. With the next great windstorm will come the crashing down of this monolithic representation of everything we aim to destroy.

We feel the winds of change beginning to blow, and we hope those reading this will do what they can to help the winds blow down everything around them.

BC: Direct Action Prevents Coastal GasLink from Drilling Under the Wedzin Kwa

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Dec 072020

Anonymous submission to North Shore Counter-info

Resistance is a living practice that spans across time and space. Interwoven webs connect peoples and communities – spreading fire from one space to the next. In its most subversive forms resistance will evade the capture of rationalization or quantification. Attempts to relay what is happening in any specific location will at best be incomplete stories, riddled by the storyteller’s bias.

What follows is a story of recent moments of resistance to the construction of the Coastal GasLink Pipeline. This is just one story and makes no attempt to speak for the wide variety of individuals involved in this struggle. We share these stories in attempt to add fuel to the fire. We hope this contribution fans the flames and helps to one day engulf the contractors involved in the project’s construction. To learn more about the contractors involved see seedsofresistance.noblogs.org

Earlier this November, pre-drilling under the Wedzin Kwa (morice river) was scheduled to begin. While CGL workers prepared to build the pads which host the drill, they were harassed, survey flags were pulled down, and a two-kilometer blockade was built on the road. Dozens of trees were felled on the road, barricades erected, barbed wire strung throughout, and a ditch was dug through the road. Once the pads where built and the drill arrived, a tree was fell onto the drill – which resulted in the drill being removed from the territory.

Simultaneously survey flags were being pulled, works sites trashed, and a hunter’s blind or tree sit is being occupied in the project’s right of way (ROW). With sub-zero temperatures long-term tree occupation is not easy – yet a 40ft tall fortified tree occupation surrounded by barricades is, for the time being, standing defiantly. Additionally, to stop access to the project’s right of way, barricades were erected and lit aflame with banners atop which read: shut down canada, solidarity with Six Nations, Mi’kmaqi fishers and Secwepemc land defenders.

Most recently, 3-4 kilometers of wooden barricades were built, stopping workers from accessing the ROW for days. To make things more difficult heavy machinery was used to dig up the road and destroy a bridge.

One day we hope to find ourselves sitting with friends and relatives resting and warming our hands on a large fire. A fire made up of all the projects which seek to destroy the land and the ones we care about – two things which we know are inseparable. Until that day comes we will continue to ignite smaller flames even if they just keep us warm for the night. We hope that the heat of these embers reaches you and warms your heart.

Rail Sabotage Against Canada

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Dec 072020

Anonymous submission to MTL Counter-info

This island is riddled with train tracks: arteries that enable the flow of capital across the continent, conduits for the transport of bitumen and other products of resource exploitation, colonization, and death. The rails have always been instruments of colonial expansion. Throughout these territories, early railways displaced indigenous peoples, carried in the troops that put down uprisings, and cemented the national identity of a nascent settler state.

Last winter, in response to police incursion into Wet’suwet’en territory and the arrest of land-defenders, rail blockades sprung up all across so-called Canada. In the year since, the resource-hungry settler state has continued its attack on indigenous peoples. From Wet’suwet’en and Secwepmeculew territories in the west, to Six Nations and Algonquin territories closer by, to Mi’kma’ki in the east, indigenous peoples have faced an onslaught of repression at the hands of police, white supremacists, and other violent settlers.

Following recent calls to Shutdown Canada again, and for a week of solidarity with indigenous land struggles, we decided to take action against the rails. Early in the morning of Monday November 30th, several autonomous groups interrupted train traffic across Montreal island. We used jumper cables to mimic the passage of freight trains, thus jamming up the rail network at several key junctions. As dawn broke on a new work week, we hope that our actions created at least some impediment to the orderly progression of the colonial economy.

With love to all those struggling to defend the land against Canada.

-Anarchists

Solidarity Disruption and Experimentation on the CP and AMT railroad

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Dec 072020

Anonymous submission to MTL Counter-info

Early in the evening of Friday November 27th in Tio’tia:ke/Montreal, Canadian Pacific (freight) and AMT (commuter trains) traffic was interrupted as a response to the Coast to Coast call to Action* against the continued violent invasion of unceded Indigenous territory by militarized colonial police forces.

A thick (thickness of a pencil) 13ft copper wire was tightly wrapped around (twice per rail just to make sure) and across the rails, completing a circuit that mimics a train passing, thus temporarily blocking off this section of the railroad until a maintenance crew is called, the wire found, the rails inspected, etc. The activation of train signal lights behind and ahead of us on the tracks allowed us to confirm it worked, though nearby crossing barriers didn’t go down to stop car traffic as expected. Our understanding is that maybe given the direction of the next train scheduled to pass, the obstruction created was understood by their system as being a train that had already passed the crossing. It is also unclear whether this works further away from electrical infrastructure where the current on the rails might not be as strong.

More experimentation – and sharing our findings – is certainly needed but we believe this method to be quick and simple enough to be replicated without much expertise or training. Police repression is also quite difficult given the scale of railroad networks in and around cities. Make sure to plan everything as securely as you would any similar action. Prepare and discuss things only with people involved and do so away from phones and other electronics equipped with microphones and geolocation systems. Make sure there is no way to identify you while gathering information (via Tor Browser or a VPN for online browsing), acquiring the tools you need, leaving the area, and finally broadcasting your action if necessary. Keep in mind cameras, fingerprints, DNA, footprints, and contextual risks (e.g. electrical current, police, falling) at all times before, during, and after the action.

As seen time and time again, the only language understood by the Canadian state is the disruption of the circulation of goods, labor, and capital. Last winter, Indigenous land protectors and settler accomplices have shown that the Canadian colonial project is nothing more than a few population hubs linked to extractive areas by vulnerable transport infrastructure. Colonial laws are illegitimate on Indigenous territory and they will always be disregarded in the fight against the genocide of Indigenous people.

*https://www.yintahaccess.com/videos

Ontario: Solidarity with Indigenous Land Defenders

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Nov 162020

Anonymous submissions to North Shore Counter-info

OPP collaborators, we see you!
November 6, 2020

UAV Tower Innovations is a drone company that is being paid by the OPP to spy on indigenous land defenders. Their publicly listed address is 403138 Grey Rd 4, Durham. Last night we spraypainted a message on their driveway:
OPP COLLABORATORS
WE SEE YOU!
WE ARE WATCHING YOU
NO JUSTICE ON STOLEN NATIVE LAND

This is a warning, keep your drones away from the front lines.

Love and solidarity to indigenous people taking back their land!

***

Hamilton: John A MacDonald Statue Painted Red
November 9, 2020

Early in the morning on November 9th, a few of us tread into the night to pay visit to Sir John A Macdonald in Gore park downtown Hamilton. With a loaded fire extinguisher, we painted him red, symbolizing his blood-soaked legacy. We did this in solidarity with the land defenders out 1492 Landback Lane, our neighbors from Six Nations, who are facing intense police violence in their attempt to save their land from another cheap and hollow suburban development.

Fuck John A and his genocidal power project, the state of Canada. A racist – even for his times – he solidified the colonial relationship and ensured the continued landtheft from Indigenous peoples. Fuck every prime minister right down the chain, including Justin Trudeau and his empty reconciliation rhetoric. Once again see the state refusing to meet the land defenders of any Nation with the respect and sovereignty they pay lip service to. And fuck the OPP. A.C.A.B.

It is time to honour the call of Indigenous people everywhere when they say LAND BACK. Come to the support of the Natives you live close to, whether that’s the Mi’kmaq fishermen fighting their right to trap out east to the Tiny House Warriors on the west coast pushing back against the TransMountain pipeline. Anytime you undermine symbols or infrastructure the state, you weaken its claim to permanence. All that was built can be torn down, just like the roads out at Sixth Line.

Lessons from this action: Fire extinguishers full of paint are rapid, quiet, & effective tools! Find a guide to how to fill them on mtlcounterinfo.org (but use Tor browser to visit it).

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