On February 18, 2025, the colonial BC Supreme Court made an unprecedented ruling that the RCMP violated the rights of Wet’suwet’en land defenders during RCMP raids on the Yintah in 2021. The judge found that police breached Charter rights and that Indigenous women were treated in racist and dehumanizing ways.

The Court found that Wet’suwet’en land defender Sleydo’ and Gitxsan land defender Shay Sampson were mocked by RCMP for wearing red hand prints painted over their mouths to represent missing and murdered Indigenous women, girls and two spirit people.

The Judge said, “I view the conduct as extremely serious, involving racism directed towards Indigenous women. That is a group who have been systemically disadvantaged throughout virtually all sectors of the criminal justice system for generations… [M]ultiple offensive and discriminatory comments were made by multiple officers.”

This decision was the result of Gidimt’en wing chief Sleydo’ Molly Wickham (Wet’suwet’en), Shaylynn Sampson (Gitxsan) and Corey Jocko (Haudenosaunee)’s collective fight back against colonial repression and criminalization through an Abuse of Process Application. They filed this to highlight widespread police misconduct and excessive force during the raids and their arrests in 2021.

In a statement after the decision, Tsakë ze’ Sleydo’ said, “The colonial courts are not where our ability to live out our laws and ways of life should be determined. And yet here we are, over 3 years later, in a show down between Wet’suwet’en law and colonial law after years of police violence and repression by the RCMP CIRG with no accountability… We will never see justice from the courts for the amount of violence we have experienced over the last six years of repression by the state. This is just the tip of the iceberg of what Indigenous people have been experiencing and what we have experienced at the hands of the RCMP… My hope is that this decision will signal to the RCMP that they can no longer violate their own laws and act with impunity. Today I chose to celebrate the Yintah, for her resiliency throughout all the destruction and for continuing to provide for us and keeping us safe.”

The Wet’suwet’en people, under the governance of their Hereditary Chiefs, have been protecting their Yintah and sacred sites against Coastal GasLink (CGL) pipeline. CGL is drilling under the Wedzin Kwa river, the sacred headwaters that feeds all of Wet’suwet’en territory. This 670-km pipeline will transport fracked gas to the LNG Canada processing plant, the largest single private sector infrastructure project and one of the largest energy investments in Canadian history.

“Our water reserve, water sources, waterways, and wildlife pattern have all been disrupted by the pipeline. Our natural harvesting of the salmon I’m sure is going to be disrupted. Our peaceful existence together has been disrupted.” – Dinï ze’ Woos

Under ‘Anuc niwh’it’en (Wet’suwet’en law) all five clans of the Wet’suwet’en have repeatedly affirmed in the balhats (feast hall) that there will no pipelines or environmentally and culturally destructive industrial activity on the Yintah. In 2020, Wet’suwet’en Hereditary Chiefs issued an eviction notice to CGL. Wet’suwet’en have repeatedly stood up to affirm ‘Anuk niwh’iten and to defend their Yintah.

In three large-scale police actions in January 2019, February 2020, and November 2021, over 74 people were arrested and detained. In these highly militarized raids, RCMP had military assault weapons, helicopters, and dog units. RCMP and CGL bulldozed and burnt down buildings, desecrated ceremonial spaces and ancient artifacts in archeological sites, implemented unlawful exclusion zones, and surveiled and terrorized Wet’suwet’en peoples and their allies. Dinï ze’ Dtsa’hyl’s sentencing in 2024 led to the declaration of the first ever Amnesty International Prisoner of Conscience in Canada.

Sleydo’, Shaylynn, and Corey are still facing a sentencing decision after being found guilty of “criminal contempt” for disobeying a colonial and punitive injunction order. These court proceedings are dragging on for years and add unimaginable hardship upon the Wet’suwet’en people upholding ‘Anuk niwh’iten.

Wet’suwet’en are currently opposing CGL’s proposed phase 2, including the construction of compressor stations to double the pipeline’s capacity, while the Gitxsan are standing against the Prince Rupert Gas Transmission project.

Weaving Our Worlds, an anti authoritarian internationalist collective in so-called Vancouver, unceded & occupied xʷməθkʷəy̓əm, Sḵwx̱wú7mesh, and səlilwətaɬ lands, stands in unwavering solidarity with Wet’suwet’en land defenders on the frontlines against capitalist colonial extraction on their lands.

We can all throw down by donating to support the frontlines, or hosting a screening of the award-winning film Yintah, or checking out the Gidimt’en Checkpoint Divestment Team organizing toolkit – all available on www.yintahaccess.com

#WetsuwetenStrong #ShutDownCanada #DefendWedzinkwa