Mohawk face online threats, hate as protest continues

Mohawks blocking traffic south of Montreal held firm Monday despite court injunction

MONTREAL – The Mohawks blocking rail traffic south of Montreal held firm Monday in the face of an injunction ordering them to clear the tracks and a spike in online threats.

Their blockade has been in place for 23 days, halting a commuter rail line and hundreds of freight shipments into the city. It has also sparked a “disturbing” rise in hate speech and death threats directed at the protesters, according to experts.

“In Quebec, the far-right has really begun to mobilize against Indigenous people and Mohawks in particular,” said Xavier Camus, a CEGEP professor and blogger who reports on far-right groups. “Online, you’re seeing very specific calls to violence and racist, dehumanizing language. It’s radicalizing people within these groups.”

Members of a Facebook group called ‘Les Amis de la CAQ’ say the protesters are “savage … terrorists” who should be murdered. The group has about 2,800 members and uses Coalition Avenir Québec’s logo but has no affiliation with the party. It emerged shortly after the CAQ won a majority mandate in 2018.

Meanwhile, Sylvain Brouillette — one of the leaders of the populist group La Meute — called Mohawks “s–t disturbers” and said “it’s easy to see why our ancestors called them savages” in a statement posted on Facebook. La Meute is one of the most prominent right-wing groups in Quebec and frequently protest against Muslims.

For the past month, Indigenous groups across Canada have been protesting in solidarity with the Wet’suwet’en chiefs opposed to the construction of a natural gas pipeline in northern British Columbia. As those actions halted rail traffic and resulted in about 1,000 layoffs in the sector, people turned to social media, often threatening violence against Indigenous people.

CP rail served protesters in Kahnawake with a court order to clear the tracks last week but Mohawk police will not enforce it. Meanwhile, Premier François Legault said provincial police hesitate to move in on the protest camp because of the presence of AK47 assault rifles on Mohawk land.

Sources inside the camp and Indigenous Services Minister Marc Miller say there are no guns on site and that the protest is a nonviolent one.

“We have elders, parents and children here, no one wants violence,” said one Mohawk protester, who did not want his name published.

Kenneth Deer — of the Mohawk Longhouse — says Legault’s words were irresponsible and unnecessarily escalate tensions on the ground.

Though the Wet’suwet’en and federal government reached a tentative agreement Sunday that could end the protests, it still needs to be ratified. Until that happens, the blockade in Kahnawake will stand.