[IPSM] Free Trevor Miller: Family and Supporters to Attorney General's Office in Toronto]

[fiona at resist.ca]

---------------------------- Original Message ----------------------------
Subject: [six_nations_info] Free Trevor Miller: Family and Supporters to
Attorney General's Office in Toronto From:    stef at tao.ca
Date:    Fri, December 15, 2006 1:57 pm
To:      six_nations_info at masses.tao.ca
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December 15, 2006
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FREE TREVOR MILLER:
FAMILY AND SUPPORTERS TO ATTORNEY GENERAL'S OFFICE IN TORONTO:
SIX NATIONS MOHAWK POLITICAL PRISONER REMAINS BEHIND BARS
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Demonstration
Monday, December 18th, 2006
7:30 AM onwards
720 Bay Street
(Just north of Gerrard St.)

On Monday, December 18, 2006, family members, friends, and supporters of
Trevor Miller, a Six Nations Mohawk of the Turtle Clan, will gather at the
Attorney General of Ontario’s Head Office, to call for the immediate
release of the indigenous political prisoner, held in a Hamilton jail for
more than four months.

After being arrested near Grassy Narrows for charges related to the Six
Nations Land Reclamation adjacent to Caledonia in southern Ontario,
Trevor, 31, has been denied bail and no trial date has been set.  This
week, he was again ordered to remain in custody by none other than Justice
T. David Marshall, an Ontario Superior Court judge who issued the
injunction against the Six Nations Reclamation of the “Douglas Creek
Estate”, leading to an OPP raid, and whose continued efforts to suspend
the on-going negotiations between the Six Nations peoples and the Canadian
government were sharply overturned by the Ontario Court of Appeal
yesterday.

In the recent court appearance, Trevor asserted that he is not a Canadian
citizen, but a Mohawk and a member of the Six Nations, clarifying that the
Ontario court has no jurisdiction over him. He asked to be allowed to
leave with his people and maintained that he was being held against the
terms of the two row wampum.  Stuart Myiow, of the Traditional Mohawk
Council, requested that Miller be released to the traditional Council
which will guarantee his appearance at all forthcoming court hearings.
(There is precedent for this as the Traditional Mohawk Council has
intervened in previous court hearings and had prisoners released to them.)

In light of the continued detention of Trevor, preventing him from being
with his three children, family members will travel from Six Nations to
gather with friends and supporters outside the Attorney General’s office
on Monday, to demand Trevor’s release and his right to be governed by the
laws of his people.

Demonstration
Monday, December 18th, 2006
7:30 AM onwards
720 Bay Street
(Just north of Gerrard St.)

Media contact person: Trudi Miller, Trevor's mother, 519.717.3674

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BACKGROUND INFORMATION:

1. Listen to an interview conducted this week with Trudy Miller, Trevor's
mother, and Angel Smith, Trevor's cousin, produced by CKUT in Montreal:
http://www.radio4all.net/proginfo.php?id=20889

2. Mohawk Political Prisoner Challenges Jurisdiction of Colonial Courts

By Fiona Becker
Indymedia
November 30th, 2006

Over 50 people packed the Cayuga courthouse on Wednesday for Trevor
Miller, a Six Nations Mohawk of the Turtle Clan, as Trevor declared to the
court that the colonial Canadian system has no jurisdiction over him. When
the judge walked into the courtroom for the pre-trial hearing of Trevor
Miller, and the bailiff called “all rise”, only the cops and the lawyers
stood up. When Trevor Miller walked in, however, the packed courthouse
stood up, and they remained on their feet throughout the proceedings.

“I am a sovereign Mohawk man, you have no jurisdiction over me,” he said
to the judge in tight handcuffs, with a freshly-shaven Mohawk and donning
a traditional Haudenosaunee shirt.

Trevor Miller, 31, has been sitting in a Hamilton jail for over four
months, after being arrested near Grassy Narrows for charges related to
the Six Nations Land Reclamation adjacent to Caledonia in southern
Ontario. Trevor Miller was denied bail in October, and has yet to be given
a trial date. He is from Six Nations of the Grand River Territory, and is
the father of three young children.

The court proceedings were attended by members of the Traditional Mohawk
Council, who went before the judge and demanded his release. “You are
holding him in custody illegally, and you’re breaking your own laws,” they
said, with a Two Row Wampum in hand. The Two Row Wampum is one of the
oldest treaties that exist between the Haudenosaunee and colonizing
nations. It demonstrates, through beadwork, the separateness of the
Iroquois to the Europeans, and allows for the collective use of the land
as long and only insofar as the ways of the white man are not enforced on
the ways of the Onkwehonweh. “You are keeping him only for political
reasons,” continued members of the council, “we demand that you release
him and hand him over to the Mohawk traditional council, who operates
under the Great Law of Peace.”

The Judge, though clearly uncomfortable, told Stuart Myiow of the Mohawk
Traditional Council that he had neither authority to address the court nor
to speak on Trevor’s behalf. Trevor’s court supporters then proceeded to
demand that the judge release him. Both his mother and sister were in
tears. “They do not regard our people as human beings,” Trevor’s mother,
Trudy Miller, said.

Trevor will be challenging the jurisdiction of the court via the Attorney
General, and returns to court for the 20th of December, at which point it
will be over 5 months in custody. His supporters and friends are urging
that people send letters of support to him while he sits indefinitely
behind the state’s bars.

Letters of support to Trevor Miller can be sent to:
Trevor Miller
165 Barton Street East
Hamilton, Ontario
L8L 2W6
Range 5CR

3. More background information can be found at:

http://ocapblog.blogspot.com/
http://auto_sol.tao.ca
www.honorsixnations.com


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