(Ottawa) Amnesty International has for the first time assigned prisoner of conscience status to a person under house arrest in Canada. “Unprecedented”, this designation of Wet’suwet’en Chief Dsta’hyl, convicted of violating an injunction, surprises legal experts.
The Indigenous leader was “unfairly criminalized” for exercising his rights in the fight against the construction of the Coastal GasLink pipeline, the human rights organization determined Wednesday at a press conference in parliament.
In early July, in the Supreme Court of British Columbia, he became “the first of four Wet’suwet’en land defenders” to be found guilty of criminal contempt “for violating the terms of an unjust injunction,” Amnesty International continues.
Canada is therefore adding “its name to an inglorious list of countries where prisoners of conscience are kept behind bars or under house arrest,” accused Ana Piquer, the organization’s regional director for the Americas.
The main person concerned said he had “condemned it for protecting our own lands while Wet’suwet’en laws were set aside”, arguing that “the ultimate goal” of the fight is “the recognition of Wet’suwet’en law in Canada”.
“This struggle has been going on for 240 years […] “Today, we are all prisoners of conscience because of what the settlers did to us,” fumed Chief Dsta’hyl, also known as Adam Gagnon.
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Wet’suwet’en Chief Dsta’hyl is found guilty of violating an injunction.
Along with other chiefs of the nation, he allegedly blocked a road and seized equipment and disabled heavy machinery in order to protect their vast territory – in accordance with what Wet’suwet’en laws require of hereditary chiefs.
“For a country that prides itself on its commitment to human rights [de la personne] “On a global scale, Canada is brazenly failing in its obligations to indigenous peoples,” reproached Gabrielle Pauzé, director of operations at Amnesty International Canada Francophone, at a press conference.
“Political rather than legal”
The concept of “prisoner of conscience” does not exist in Canadian legal law or in international law; it is an “amalgam” emanating from Amnesty International, and which was created in the 1960s, underlines lawyer Isabelle Boisvert-Chastenay.
“It’s a subjective concept. It’s political rather than legal,” notes in an interview the specialist in indigenous law, who works for the Montreal firm O’Reilly et Associés.
The Dsta’hyl camp could have appealed or sought judicial review of the initial 2019 injunction, as Judge Tammen wrote in his 2024 judgment, Mr.e Boisvert-Chastenay.
In my opinion, the question is not necessarily whether this person [le chef Dsta’hyl] is a prisoner of conscience or not. It is rather that injunctions, before being issued by Canadian courts, should take into account indigenous rights.
Isabelle Boisvert-Chastenay, specialist in indigenous law
Camille Marquis-Bissonnette, a professor of international law at the University of Quebec in Outaouais, also sees a conflict between indigenous law and Canadian law, even if the prosecutor took this into account in the sentence.
“We are not in a more classic case like in Saudi Arabia where a person is sentenced to 10 years in prison for having published a blog post,” she illustrates. “It is not a question of saying that the courts do not have independence.”
On the other hand, “it is not because a court is impartial that it does not belong to a colonial system,” notes Professor Marquis-Bissonnette. There was also clearly a “political will” for the gas pipeline project to go ahead.
The federal government, which adopted the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples in June 2021, could therefore “back down on this case,” she suggests. Because “reconciliation doesn’t just happen through noble and easy things like apologies and fine speeches,” she points out.
Request for release
The attribution of prisoner of conscience status is accompanied, as usual, by a demand for his release from Amnesty International, as well as an end to the “criminalization of Wet’suwet’en and other defenders of indigenous lands”
The organization also reports that other members of the Wet’suwet’en Nation who were detained in March 2023 and charged with contempt of court for violating the terms of the injunction are still awaiting trial dates.
“Amnesty International will also consider designating these individuals as prisoners of conscience if they are sentenced to prison or house arrest,” warned speakers at the press conference held on Wednesday.
There is no hiding the fact that publicizing these cases is an effective means of exerting pressure. “Amnesty International is a movement that is supported by millions of people around the world. When we name a prisoner of conscience, their eyes turn to that person,” argued Ana Piquer.
“This is a pressure that governments often have difficulty dealing with,” she said.
The Canadian government was asked by The Press for a reaction, Wednesday noon.
Definition of a prisoner of conscience
Amnesty International considers a prisoner of conscience to be “any person who is imprisoned or subjected to other physical restrictions (such as house arrest) solely because of their political, religious or other beliefs, ethnicity, sex, colour, language, national or social origin, socio-economic status, birth, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, or other status, and who has not used violence or advocated violence or hatred in the circumstances leading to their detention.”