PRINCE GEORGE, B.C. — A photojournalist was released by a B.C. Supreme Court judge on Monday, three days after she was arrested while covering the RCMP's enforcement of an injunction against pipeline protesters in northern British Columbia.
Amber Bracken was released on the condition that she appear in court in February and that she comply with the terms of the injunction order first granted to Coastal GasLink by the same judge in December 2019.
An RCMP statement issued Friday said two people who "later identified themselves as independent journalists" were arrested after refusing to leave "building-like structures" near a drilling site for the natural gas pipeline, which is under construction.
The arrests came after members of the Gidimt'en clan, one of five in the Wet'suwet'en Nation, set up blockades along the forest service road on Nov. 14.
The road was cleared on Thursday, the RCMP said.
Opposition among Wet'suwet'en hereditary chiefs to the 670-kilometre pipeline route sparked rallies and rail blockades across Canada early last year, while the elected council of the Wet'suwet'en First Nation and others in the area have agreed to the project.
A memorandum of understanding had been signed between the hereditary chiefs and the federal and provincial governments, easing tensions up until now.
The pipeline would transport natural gas from Dawson Creek in northeastern B.C. to Kitimat. It is more than halfway finished with almost all of the route cleared and 200 kilometres of pipeline installed, Coastal GasLink has said.
The Canadian Association of Journalists issued statements over the weekend condemning the arrests of Bracken and documentary filmmaker Michael Toledano, who was expected to appear in court later on Monday.
In an open letter to Canada's public safety minister posted Monday and signed by several dozen news outlets and press freedom organizations, the association called for a "swift resolution respecting journalists' fundamental rights."
On Sunday, Public Safety Minister Marco Mendicino said on Twitter that journalists play a role that is fundamental for democracy and they "must be able to work free from threats, intimidation or arbitrary state action."
"As the courts have held, it would be wrong for any journalist to be arrested and detained simply for doing their vital work on our behalf," he wrote.
B.C. Public Safety Minister Mike Farnworth said Monday that a free press is critical to democracy and it was his hope that the situation would not escalate.
The province has been doing "a significant amount of work over the last number of months to try and de-escalate tensions in the area," he told a news conference.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 22, 2021.
The Canadian Press
Press organizations condemn arrest of Amber Bracken and Michael Toledano at pipeline protest in British Columbia
Leyland Ceccoin Ottawa
Mon 22 Nov 2021
Press organizations in Canada have condemned the arrest of two journalists who were detained while covering Indigenous-led resistance to a controversial pipeline project and remain in custody.
Amber Bracken, an award-winning photojournalist who has previously worked with the Guardian, and Michael Toledano, a documentary film-maker, were arrested on Friday by Royal Canadian Mounted police officers who were enforcing a court-ordered injunction in British Columbia. More than a dozen protesters were also arrested.
The activists sabotaging railways in solidarity with Indigenous people
Bracken was on assignment for the environmental outlet the Narwhal, which had previously notified police that Bracken was reporting in the area.
“The Narwhal is extremely disturbed that photojournalist Amber Bracken was arrested for doing her job while reporting on the events unfolding in Wet’suwet’en territory on Friday,” said the editor-in-chief, Emma Gilchrist, in a statement. “Bracken has been held in jail for three nights, in violation of her charter rights. We strongly condemn the RCMP for this behaviour and all violations of press freedoms in this country.”
Gilchrist told the Guardian the publication had not been able to access Bracken’s photos from the day she was arrested.
The Canadian Association of Journalists has condemned the arrests and called for the immediate release of the two journalists.
Bracken and Toledano have each spent months documenting tensions over the 670km Coastal GasLink pipeline that would transport natural gas from the north-eastern part of the province to a facility in Kitimat. While a number of communities have approved the project along the pipeline’s proposed route, hereditary chiefs of the Wet’suwet’en peoples have refused to give consent for the project, which passes through their traditional territory. The Wet’suwet’en has never signed a formal treaty with the provincial government, and have not relinquished their land.
Police conduct against Indigenous-led blockages has drawn criticism in the past, and in 2019 the Guardian revealed that the RCMP was prepared to shoot activists.
In recent months, during a separate blockade against old-growth forest logging, police responded by ripping off protesters’ masks to pepper-spray them and dragging them by their hair.
Last month, a British Columbia supreme court judge ruled that the police force’s expulsion zones – set up to prevent media from entering certain areas of the injunction area – were unlawful.
The RCMP said in a statement over the weekend that its officers were enforcing a provincial court injunction granted to Coastal GasLink which bars protesters from blocking a forest road used by construction crews.
The statement says police found a structure built on the service road and ordered people to leave after reading out the injection. Police then broke down the doors of the structure and arrested 11 people, including Bracken and Toledano, who the police said identified themselves as “independent journalists”.
The two are due to appear before Prince George court on Monday.
By Omar MoslehEdmonton Bureau
Jeremy NuttallVancouver Bureau
Mon., Nov. 22, 2021timer4 min. read
A photojournalist arrested by RCMP as she covered protests by members of the Wet’suwet’en Nation against a pipeline project in their territory was released Monday after being held in custody for three days, in a case that has alarmed advocates for freedom of the press in this country.
Amber Bracken, who had been working for the Narwhal news outlet at the time of her arrest, was released after agreeing to appear again in court on Feb. 14 and to comply with the terms of a 2019 injunction that stops opponents from impeding work on the pipeline.
Meanwhile, the story at the centre of the events, the Wet’suwet’en opposition to the pipeline project, rages on.
Bracken and documentary filmmaker Michael Toledano had been among more than a dozen people, including Indigenous land defenders and elders, arrested by the RCMP as they enforced the injunction granted to Coastal GasLink, which is building the natural gas pipeline in northwest British Columbia.
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The arrests came after members of the Gidimt’en clan, one of five in the Wet’suwet’en Nation, set up blockades along the forest service road earlier this month.
Opposition among Wet’suwet’en hereditary chiefs to the 670-kilometre pipeline route sparked rallies and rail blockades across Canada early last year, while the elected council of the Wet’suwet’en First Nation have agreed to the project.
In an interview with the Star on Monday, Crown-Indigenous Relations Minister Marc Miller stopped short of directly criticizing the RCMP’s decision to enforce a court injunction against a blockade last week. But he noted that he and his counterpart in the B.C. government, Murray Rankin, were pushing for a last-minute meeting with Wet’suwet’en chiefs and “what everyone has witnessed over the last four days was sadly the result of that.”
The arrests of Bracken and Toledano — both of whom were released Monday — had enraged media advocates.
“I believe that, under the charter and as journalists, we have a right to be in those spaces and documenting them,” said Carol Linnitt, executive editor of the Narwhal, following Bracken’s release.
“The RCMP has been able to undermine that right with total impunity in this case.”
RCMP had said they arrived at the two-kilometre mark of the Marten Forest Service Road to find obstructions, blockades, “two building-like structures” and a wood pile that was on fire near a drilling site. They said they encouraged people within the buildings to leave or face arrest, before breaking through the doors and arresting those who did not comply.
Cody Merriman, a Haida land defender who was also arrested, was also released Monday upon agreeing to court conditions to not enter the exclusion zone.
The court’s order Monday specifies those arrested cannot obstruct or impede work on the pipeline, and lays out a 10-metre buffer zone they must not breach between them and the company’s work and personnel.
The RCMP issued a release Monday saying Bracken and Toledano did not identify themselves as journalists during a 60-minute dialogue between police and protesters inside “barricaded structures.”
The statement said all inside were given the chance to leave and the two “later” identified themselves as journalists when police forced open the door.
The RCMP also said it understands the “constitutional role the media play in Canada” and has a relationship based on respect and professionalism.
/https://www.thestar.com/content/dam/thestar/news/canada/2021/11/22/photojournalist-and-filmmaker-released-after-rcmp-arrests-in-wetsuweten-territory-spark-outrage/amber_bracken.jpg)
Lawyers for Coastal GasLink had also argued that Bracken had not clearly identified herself as a journalist at the time of her arrest, while her lawyer, David Sutherland, said she had identification that clearly labelled her as a member of the press.
He added she was not a protester, was not obstructing police and was doing her job when she was arrested.
Linnitt said she doesn’t buy the RCMP’s version of events.
She said the Narwhal had notified the RCMP in advance of the arrests to tell them Bracken was on scene on behalf of the outlet.
“It was no secret that Amber was up there as a journalist,” she said. “She was actively reporting.”
Linnitt said she worries a new precedent has been set by the arrests, calling them a concerning set of circumstances for press freedom in Canada. Reporters have a right to be in areas where police are arresting people or enforcing the law, she said.
Now, along with arguing for the RCMP to drop the charges, she said the Narwhal is exploring the possibility of further legal action.
Linnitt said it still isn’t clear how the conditions of Bracken’s release could affect her coverage of the protests.
“Our position is she, as a journalist, is not bound by the terms of the injunction, which has nothing to do with journalists,” Linnitt said.
The Canadian Association of Journalists said Friday the courts have previously affirmed the right of journalists to report in court injunction areas, pointing to a 2019 decision made by Newfoundland and Labrador Supreme Court Justice Derek Green to dismiss civil charges related to coverage of the Muskrat Falls site protest, which had shut down work at a dam in 2016.
In July, the CAJ along with other media organizations won a court challenge at the Supreme Court in B.C. on press freedom in the Fairy Creek area. The judge’s final decision agreed with the media groups, indicating the RCMP cannot interfere with coverage without providing an operational reason to do so.
The Star worked with other news outlets to support Bracken and Toledano, and Torstar was one of more than 40 news outlets that called for Canada’s public safety minister to take immediate steps to review the RCMP’s actions and to ensure journalists’ rights to report were protected.
Longtime press freedom advocate Sean Holman, a professor of environmental and climate journalism at the University of Victoria, said given the outcry from the public and press he didn’t think Bracken would actually face trial.
“A free press and the work that journalists do are essential for democracy,” he said.
With files from Olivia Bowden and Alex Ballingall
Omar Mosleh is an Edmonton-based reporter for the Star. Follow him on Twitter: @OmarMosleh
RCMP operation puts end to Wet’suwet’en blockade, latest tumultuous chapter in northern B.C. pipeline saga
British Columbia
Judge releases journalists arrested by RCMP during enforcement of pipeline injunction
Amber Bracken's lawyer told judge photojournalist was well
known to both Coastal GasLink and RCMP
A B.C. judge has released two journalists arrested by RCMP at a pipeline protest camp last week as police sought to enforce an injunction.
Justice Marguerite Church of the Supreme Court of B.C., in Prince George, said she would release Amber Bracken and Michael Toledano from custody after they agreed to comply with the terms of an injunction intended to keep protesters away from the construction of the Coastal GasLink pipeline.
Both journalists were detained by RCMP last Friday — arrests that sparked an angry response from advocates of press freedom across North America.
Both are required to return to court Feb. 14, 2022 for a hearing related to allegations of civil contempt of court.
A lawyer for Coastal GasLink said that unlike the other 27 people who were arrested at the resistance camp, Bracken and Toledano would be allowed to return to the "exclusion zone" covered by the terms of the injunction because they have a "justified reason to go back."
'Labelled as press'
Bracken is an Alberta-based photojournalist who has won awards for her work covering the Wet'suwet'en conflict; Toledano is an independent filmmaker who has been working on a documentary on the conflict and resistance to Coastal GasLink since 2019.
"This was a punitive arrest. A punitive incarceration. I was put in a holding cell for four days for filming Indigenous people being removed from their land at gunpoint," Toledano said in brief comments to CBC News upon his release.
"Canadians should know that journalists in this country can be arrested and incarcerated if they're telling a story the RCMP don't like."
Bracken's lawyer, David Sutherland, took issue with the company lawyer's contention that neither of the journalists had identified themselves as media immediately and were "crossing the line between being media and being protesters."
Sutherland said Bracken was well-known as a member of the media to both Coastal GasLink and the police.
"She was labelled on her body as press," said Sutherland, who said Bracken had pinned to her body a copy of an assignment letter from The Narwhal, the publication that hired her to cover the situation.
"Amber Bracken told me she was labelled as press and identified herself as press ... so there's no breach of the injunction at all."
Long-standing protest
The Coastal GasLink pipeline, if completed, will span 670 kilometres across northern B.C., transporting natural gas from near Dawson Creek in the east to Kitimat on the Pacific Ocean.
The company has signed benefit agreements with 20 band councils along the route of the project. But Wet'suwet'en hereditary leadership says band councils do not have authority over land beyond reserve boundaries. The hereditary chiefs oppose the construction of the pipeline, saying the company does not have consent to cross Wet'suwet'en territory.
RCMP have previously taken action against protesters in this area in 2019 and 2020.
According to Church, the latest flashpoint in the conflict occurred at a blockade erected "in the name of the Gidimt'en band of the Wet'suwet'en people," that had halted Coastal GasLink's plans to drill a tunnel under the Wedzin Kwa river.
The blockades stranded about 500 Coastal GasLink employees, causing water rations and fears over food shortages, after the company declined to comply with an eviction notice issued by the Gidimt'en Checkpoint, which controls access to part of the Wet'suwet'en territory.
Last week, police dismantled blockades along the Morice River Forest Service Road that lead to two work camps by enforcing the terms of an injunction Church issued in December 2019.
Some protesters released with conditions
In a statement, B.C. RCMP Assistant Commissioner Eric Stubbs claimed Bracken and Toledano were inside barricaded structures that were the subject of police enforcement efforts when they were arrested.
"They were also among those to whom the injunction was read and they were afforded the opportunity to leave the structures," Stubbs wrote.
"They did not identify themselves at any point during this dialogue with police, which lasted over 60 minutes."
Stubbs claimed Bracken and Toledano only identified themselves as journalists once police forced open the doors of the barricaded structures.
Toledano gave a different account.
"I would argue that I had no opportunity to leave the scene," he said. "I was surrounded by men who had guns pointed at the house and so if I had opened the door, I would have endangered everyone else."
At the end of Monday's court proceedings, Church released five protesters who said they would be willing to sign a document promising to comply with the terms of the injunction, but felt they should be able to return to the injunction's exclusion zone.
Church disagreed, ordering them released on the condition that they promise to stay out of the proscribed area.
Beyond the courtroom itself, reporters and members of the public listened to the hearing through a teleconference line that was beset with technical difficulties and people who failed to mute their microphones, drawing the ire of other participants.
A number of other protesters remained behind bars Monday night, with a hearing on their applications for release set for Tuesday morning.
With files from Andrew Kurjata
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