Straight Talk

Vancouver police arrest six while removing blockade at intersection of East Hastings Street and Clark Drive

by Charlie Smith on February 25th, 2020 at 1:25 PM
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      After a major East Vancouver intersection was shut down for 24 hours, police decided that enough was enough.

      After reading an injunction over a loudspeaker, the VPD arrested six people who had been blocking traffic at Clark Drive and East Hastings Street for refusing to abide by a B.C. Supreme Court injunction.

      The VPD did not release any names.

      However, CBC News reporter Yvette Brend reported that hereditary chiefs' supporter Amber Statters is among those taken into custody.

      The activists took over the intersection on Monday (February 24) afternoon to show solidarity with Wet'suwet'en hereditary chiefs and Tyendinaga Mohawks.

      Earlier that day, police had taken down the Mohawks' encampment beside the CN Rail main line near Belleville, Ontario, with 10 arrests.

      Members of the Vancouver group stayed at Clark and East Hastings in front of the main entrance to the Port of Vancouver overnight and throughout today as the VPD continued monitoring the situation.

      But this afternoon, officers enforced the injunction, which had been obtained earlier this month by the Vancouver Fraser Port Authority.

       

      In a statement issued earlier today, Navajo and Yurok organizer Natalie Knight offered a "gentle reminder" to those inconvenienced by the group's actions.

      "Indigenous peoples on these lands have experienced the violence of colonization for over 150 years," she said. "We will continue disrupting business as usual in this city until the demands of the Wet'suwet'en hereditary chiefs have been met."

      These chiefs want the RCMP to stop patrolling their traditional territory and Coastal GasLink to leave the area.

      "You cannot injunct justice," declared Herb Varley, a local Indigenous activist of Haida, Nisga'a, Tlingit, and Nuu-chah-nulth ancestry, in the same statement. "Injunctions are consistently used against Indigenous people seeking to protect our lands from extraction. They prioritize corporate profit and economic interest over human rights."

      The RCMP has also moved against another railway blockade near Kamloops.

      According to Real Peoples Media, three have been arrested on unceded Secwépemc'ulecw land in Neskonlith.

      Indigenous sovereignists lit a sacred fire there last night. 

      Among those present was Canada Research Chair in Indigenous Knowledge and Philosophy scholar Jeannette Armstrong. She's the author of Slash, which is believed to be the first novel written by an Indigenous woman in Canada.

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