Hospital staff assumed Joyce Echaquan was an opioid addict. She was dying of a rare heart condition
An Indigenous woman who was taunted by nursing staff as she lay dying in a Quebec hospital would probably be alive today if she were white, a coroner has concluded.
The death of Joyce Echaquan was an “undeniable” example of systematic racism in the province, the Québec coroner Géhane Kamel told reporters on Tuesday.
Continue reading...As the Tzeltal people resist huge infrastructure projects across Chiapas state, the new national guard barracks springing up are alarming many
Micaela* always stops to kiss a cross at the base of three hills, a lush swath of land in the indigenous ejido of San Sebastián Bachajón, Chiapas. Her ejido, meaning communal land, is shared among more than 5,000 Tzeltal inhabitants. But soon, they will also have to share it with Mexico’s national guard.
The national guard has built 165 barracks in Mexico since it was created only two years ago by President Andrés Manuel López Obrador to replace the federal police, which he said was corrupt. Micaela’s community is leading the first lawsuit against one of 500 or so barracks planned across the country.
Continue reading...The New Zealand trio have gone global thanks to their forthright Māori-language songs, which confront colonial history and ongoing inequality
New Zealand was a war zone in the mid-1800s. On one side were the British and the colonial government, craving a stranglehold on more of the country’s land. On the other were the indigenous Māori people, fighting to preserve tino rangatiratanga: their sovereignty and self-determination.
On 29 April 1864, the British invaded Pukehinahina, also known as Gate Pā. Despite being grossly outnumbered, the Māori fended off the attackers using concealed trenches and guerrilla tactics. It was a fleeting victory in a war that, ultimately, led to the confiscation of 3m acres of Māori land.
Continue reading...Those worst hit by global heating are left out of talks, says feminist coalition calling for systemic change
Women must be enabled to play a greater role at the Cop26 summit, as the needs of women and girls are being overlooked amid the global climate crisis, a coalition of feminist groups has said.
The Global Women’s Assembly for Climate Justice has laid out a call for action at the UN general assembly, including demands that world leaders meeting at Cop26, in Glasgow this November, must end fossil fuel expansion and move to 100% renewable energy.
Continue reading...Church leaders express ‘profound remorse’ for suffering caused to indigenous children amid silence from the Vatican
High-ranking Catholic bishops in Canada have officially apologised for their role in the country’s notorious residential school system for the first time, after refusing to do so for years despite public pressure.
The organisation expressed “profound remorse” and apologised unequivocally along with all Catholic entities that were directly involved in the operation of the schools, according to a statement issued on Friday by the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops.
Continue reading...Residents of Shoal Lake 40 can drink from taps thanks to a new water treatment facility but dozens of communities lack access
Residents of a First Nations community in Canada, who were deprived of clean drinking water for nearly a quarter of a century, can now drink from their taps after a water treatment facility became fully operational earlier this week.
Shoal Lake 40, a community on the Manitoba-Ontario border, has been under drinking water advisory since 1997.
Continue reading...Indigenous leaders had hoped to purchase the land, which is home to 1,000-year-old drawings and was auctioned off for $2.2m
A Missouri cave containing Native American artwork from more than 1,000 years ago was sold at auction Tuesday, disappointing leaders of the Osage Nation who hoped to buy the land to “protect and preserve our most sacred site”.
A bidder agreed to pay US$2.2m to private owners for what’s known as “Picture Cave,” along with the 43 hilly acres that surround it near the town of Warrenton, about 60 miles (97km) west of St Louis.
Continue reading...The Brazilian photographer Sebastião Salgado has been named as one of four winners of a £400,000 award given by the Japan Art Association. Amazonia, an exhibition by Salgado, opens at the Science Museum in London from 13 October. An exhibition of collectors prints, organised by the Photographers’ Gallery, is on show at Cromwell Place Art Centre from 20 October
Continue reading...Resort will be called Palisades Tahoe after consulting with Indigenous groups over longstanding name
A popular ski resort at California’s Lake Tahoe has changed its name to remove a racist and misogynistic slur after consultations with local Indigenous groups.
The resort, known as Squaw Valley since 1949, will be called Palisades Tahoe, the business announced on Monday.
Continue reading...Jair Bolsonaro is backing a legal move to open up large tracts of indigenous territory to commercial exploitation that tribal members call an ‘extermination effort’
More than 5,000 indigenous women have marched through Brazil’s capital to denounce the historic assault on native lands they say is unfolding under the country’s far-right president, Jair Bolsonaro.
Female representatives of more than 170 of Brazil’s 300-plus tribes have gathered in Brasília in recent days to oppose highly controversial attempts to strip back indigenous land rights and open their territories to mining operations and agribusiness.
Continue reading...Since 1975, Māori have been able to reclaim land through a tribunal – but its reach is limited and now they are exploring other options
Two years ago, a small pocket of land three kilometres from Auckland’s international airport became the most prominent site of a struggle by Māori, New Zealand’s indigenous people, to reclaim land confiscated by the crown more than 150 years ago.
Ihumātao contains evidence of New Zealand’s first commercial gardens, where thousands of hectares were planted with kumara, a tropical sweet potato which thrived in the warm and nutritious soil. The adjacent stonefields, today a category one Unesco heritage site, are rich with ancient nurseries and storage pits. When William Hobson, then-governor of New Zealand, founded Auckland in 1840, the produce of Ihumātao sustained the growing population.
Continue reading...A roundup of the struggle for human rights and freedoms, from Afghanistan to Greece
Continue reading...Walking Eagle News, which uses humour to skewer political hypocrisy, has built a growing following in the wake of recent horrific discoveries
Days after the statues of two British monarchs were toppled in the province of Manitoba amid growing fury over the legacy of Canada’s residential school system, where Indigenous children were forcibly sent for much of the 20th century, the website Walking Eagle News had its own take – not so much on the grief and outrage, but on the fixation with statues.
“Country was ‘mere seconds’ from reconciliation before the statue toppled: Manitoba premier,” ran the Walking Eagle News headline.
Continue reading...Ashley Bloomfield urges everyone to be kind amid rise in online abuse after outbreak at Auckland church service that took place before lockdown
New Zealand’s director general of health has condemned “gutless” racism against Pacific communities, as the Covid-19 outbreak continues to grow.
Announcing case numbers on Wednesday, Dr Ashley Bloomfield said the ministry of health had seen racism being directed at Pacific New Zealanders, and that those racist remarks were “disappointing – and frankly, gutless”.
Continue reading...Regional hub in New Plymouth – built on land seized from Māori in 1960 – is up against the likes of New York’s LaGuardia for Unesco’s Prix Versailles
A tiny regional airport in New Zealand that weaves a Māori story of love and longing into its architecture is in the running for a prestigious design award, up against international heavyweights including New York’s LaGuardia.
Unesco’s Prix Versailles recognises architecture that fosters a better interaction between economy and culture, and includes a range of categories from airports to shopping malls. The finalists for the airport category include the New York LaGuardia upgrade, Berlin’s Brandenburg airport and international airports in Athens, Kazakhstan and the Philippines.
Continue reading...A round-up of the coverage of the struggle for human rights and freedoms, from Thailand to Mexico
Continue reading...Indigenous women in North and Central America are coming together to share ancestral knowledge of amaranth, a plant booming in popularity as a health food
Just over 10 years ago, a small group of Indigenous Guatemalan farmers visited Beata Tsosie-Peña’s stucco home in northern New Mexico. In the arid heat, the visitors, mostly Maya Achì women from the forested Guatemalan town of Rabinal, showed Tsosie-Peña how to plant the offering they had brought with them: amaranth seeds.
Back then, Tsosie-Peña had just recently come interested in environmental justice amid frustration at the ecological challenges facing her native Santa Clara Pueblo – an Indigenous North American community just outside the New Mexico town of Española, which is downwind from the nuclear facilities that built the atomic bomb. Tsosie-Peña had begun studying permaculture and other Indigenous agricultural techniques. Today, she coordinates the environmental health and justice program at Tewa Women United, where she maintains a hillside public garden that’s home to the descendants of those first amaranth seeds she was given more than a decade ago.
Continue reading...First Nations leaders seek more influence on how forests are managed, and the right to conduct prescribed burns
When Tyler Vander Griend saw thick black smoke rising above the village of Lytton in western Canada, his first instinct was to run towards the inferno.
But the flames were moving too fast, and Vander Griend, a lanky youth from the nearby Kanaka Bar First Nation, was forced to watch helplessly as fire consumed the community.
Continue reading...The agreement promises to compensate residents and ensure drinking water infrastructure is built
Canada’s federal government has reached a C$8bn settlement in two class-action lawsuits with First Nations communities over access to clean drinking water.
The agreement promises to compensate residents, ensure drinking water infrastructure is built and modernize legislation – as First Nations leaders have been demanding for decades.
Continue reading...A resurgence in the traditional drink is offering rural communities independence and a sustainable alternative to industrial soy and cattle farming
Four men emerge from the intense heat and steam of the barbacuá into the cold winter’s night in the rural district of Edelira, southern Paraguay. They rest, leaning on pitchforks they have used to turn over the prized load of fragrant yerba mate leaves inside this traditional drying oven. The centuries-old design drives hot air from a fire on to the large wooden frame where the leaves sit.
“I control the leaf’s humidity through intuition,” says Lisandro Benítez, the group’s lead, or uru. “Too humid and it won’t have the right flavour, too hot and dry and it could catch fire.”
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