Turtle Island Solidarity Network

Let us offer our prayers to those on the front-lines of police abolition movements, as well as to those who take their roles behind-the-scenes. 

Pray for all Indigenous communities subjected to governments that treat them as disposable during this Covid-19 epidemic.

We pray that the family and community of Eisha Hudson will find justice. On 8 April 2020, 16-year old Eisha Hudson was shot and killed by the police in Winnipeg, Manitoba.  Eisha was unarmed. There are conflicting reports coming out from the police, media and family about the events that played out on 8 April. But one truth remains. Eisha was a child. CPT condemns the killing of Eisha, and we condemn the violence Indigenous children have experienced at the hands of the Canadian state from its inception to the present.  No peace and reconciliation can occur until the violence of the Canadian government—at all levels—ends, and it brings the perpetrators to justice.

Our #CPTJusticeJourney began at the start of Lent, on February 26th. Since then much has changed as communities across the world respond to the spread of the Coronavirus. While Christian Peacemaker Teams (CPT) have suspended physical accompaniment across programs, we continue to seek out ways to be present, adapting to online strategies of advocacy and accompaniment in response to our partners’ needs.

Please pray for Wet’suwet’en land defenders and their allies in the lands known as Canada. For years, Wet’suwet’en hereditary chiefs have led nonviolent resistance to the construction of oil and gas pipelines across their unceded land, which lies between the Alberta tar sands and the port of Kitimat on the west coast. The proposed pipelines would allow for the expansion of the Alberta tar sands, already considered the largest and most destructive industrial project in the world.

Hoy, recordemos en nuestras oraciones las luchas de los pueblos Indígenas para detener la destrucción continua de sus tierras ancestrales en el Kurdistán Iraquí, en la Isla Tortuga, en Palestina y alrededor de todo el mundo. La sed insaciable del mundo por los recursos que las industrias transnacionales y locales buscan satisfacer es más fuerte que el respeto de los gobiernos por los derechos humanos—incluyendo los derechos de los pueblos Indígenas—y los derechos de Pachamama/Madre Tierra. La semana pasada vimos un ejemplo de esta falta de respeto cuando la policía Canadiense, fuertemente militarizada, protegió a una compañía de combustibles fósiles que destruía la tierra de Wet’suwet’en, tal como las compañías petroleras han hecho con las granjas y aldeas Kurdas en Kurdistán.