CPTnet
March 29, 2001
Esgenoopetetitj, New Brunswick: Court Recognizes Canadian Government's
Abuse of Mi'kmaq Human Rights

In a decision last week, Judge McCarroll of the New Brunswick Provincial
Court found the Canada Coordinator of Christian Peacemaker Teams (CPT), Doug
Pritchard, not guilty of "obstructing a fisheries officer" because he was
"acting as a human rights observer" when accompanying Mi'kmaq people to
their lobster fishery on June 12, 2000.

In the March 19, 2001 ruling, Judge McCarroll disagreed with the
government's assertion that Pritchard's photographing of the actions of
Department of Fisheries and Oceans (DFO) officers, as they confiscated traps
set under the Esgenoopetitj First Nation's Fisheries Act, constituted an
obstruction of the officers. The judge underlined that Pritchard was a human
rights observer in the incident described by DFO officers. Pritchard had
been aboard a Mi'kmaq boat which approached DFO vessels in the waters
adjacent to this Mi'kmaq community.

"By this decision Judge McCarroll recognized that there is an underlying
issue of human rights abuse in the DFO actions last year," commented
Pritchard after the ruling. "A Canadian court has acknowledged that there is
a role for human rights observers in the ongoing conflict between Canada and
the Mi'kmaq Nation over fishing."

CPT maintained a team in Esgenoopetitj during the 2000 lobster fishing
season.