[news] Blockade matriarch gets jail time

[resist]

vancouver.cbc.ca 

VANCOUVER - A veteran anti-logging protester is going back to jail for
six months.

'Her conduct here was simply standing on a logging road in the
wilderness, and criticizing the government's forest policy' – Cameron
Ward Betty Krawczyk, 75, has become known as the matriarch of forest
blockades.

B.C. Supreme Justice Bruce Harvey sentenced her Tuesday to on her two
most recent counts of criminal contempt of court.

Krawczyk was charged and convicted for her role in a protest in the
Walbran Valley this spring.

Her lawyer, Cameron Ward, called the sentence harsh.

"Her conduct here was simply standing on a logging road in the
wilderness, and criticizing the government's forest policy," he said.

"For that conduct, she's now going to spend another six months in jail,
in addition to the four months she's already spent."

Harvey said she was offered bail, but repeatedly refused the conditions,
such as staying away from logging protests.

The fact that she will end up serving ten months in total jail time, he
said, amounts to a "self-inflicted wound."

While Krawcyzk maintaine she was trying to protect a fragile forest
co-system, the judge said he was called to protect the fragile rule of
law.

Krawcyzk has continually shown she holds it in utter contempt, he said.