G7 Welcoming Committee Records. Uncooperative since 1997.

For those unawares, Mohawk activist Shawn Brant was arrested last Friday, April 25th on bogus charges, and is currently sitting in a maximum security prison, while thugs who were threatening Aboriginal community members with baseball bats walk free. In the past decade Shawn has become a leading voice for action amongst Canada’s indigenous communities — not to mention Canada’s poor, as evidenced by his tireless work with OCAP and has thus been targeted repeatedly by the RCMP.

OCAP has a site dedicated to chronicling the efforts to support Shawn’s case, recently updated with an open letter from his wife and fellow activist Sue Collis.

Less than a month ago, my husband was acquitted of charges he carried for more than 18 months. When issuing the ruling in this acquittal, the judge described the investigative practice and evidence employed and presented by the cops and the Crown as “problematic” and “troubling,” as they related to Shawn. During this same period, CBC Radio aired a documentary in which several Mohawk people recounted conversations with OPP Commissioner Fantino that occurred during the 2007 Aboriginal Day of Action, in which they say he threatened to “ruin” Shawn. During Shawn’s detention at the Napanee OPP detachment last week, several different police officers threatened to “slit his throat” and “cut off his head.”

Incidentally, Propagandhi’s “oldies” (haha) show in Winnipeg at the Albert — which occurred the very day of Shawn’s most recent arrest — managed to raise somewhere in the neighbourhood of $3000 for the defense fund. If you can, consider sending in your own pledge of support.