ICT is working to shape the future of journalism and stay connected with readers like you. A crucial part of that effort is understanding our audience. Share your perspective in a brief survey for a chance to win prizes.
Miles Morrisseau
ICT
Award-winning journalist Brandi Morin has been on the front lines for years documenting and reporting on Indigenous peoples as they face the power of Canadian authority.
On Jan. 10, while covering a police raid on a homeless encampment in Edmonton, Alberta, it was her turn. Morin was arrested and charged with obstruction, which carries a maximum sentence of two years in prison.
Now, despite calls for the charges to be dropped from major civil rights organizations and associations for journalists and writers, Morin has been moving through a criminal justice system that does not favor Indigenous women.
“I’m familiar with the violence that our people face by the police,” Morin, who is Cree/Iroquois/French, told ICT. “I was there to do my job – to witness, to document. I was not impeding their work. … The next thing you know, I’m handcuffed and put into a paddy wagon and taken to police headquarters downtown and held in a cell for five hours.”
Morin is a prominent journalist whose works have been published by The New York Times, Rolling Stone magazine, National Geographic, Indian Country Today (now ICT) and many more.
In 2022, she won the Edward R. Murrow Award for her reporting on the missing and murdered Indigenous peoples crisis for Al-Jazeera. In 2023, she was awarded PEN Canada’s Ken Filkow Prize for her bravery in “advancing freedom of expression in Canada.”
And her memoir, “Our Voice of Fire,” a Canadian bestseller, was awarded the 2023 Wilfrid Eggleston award for nonfiction.
Her arrest has sparked outrage over the growing attacks on journalists.
“Brandi was targeted and singled out for doing her job as a journalist,” Brent Jolly, president of the Canadian Association of Journalists, said at a press conference Jan. 29 with a group of supporters.
“Brandi’s arrest makes an absolute mockery of the rights to freedom of the press and the ability to report on the activities of taxpayer-funded law enforcement agencies,” Jolly said.
On the frontlines
Morin was covering the removal of encampments in early January as the Edmonton police were sweeping what they deemed “high risk” areas.
The houseless crisis is one of a growing number of issues in Canada in which Indigenous people are overrepresented. In Edmonton, Indigenous people make up about 8 percent of the population, but represent 60 percent of people experiencing homelessness, Morin said.
“The majority of the people in this crisis, and I would say, across the country, are Native people, and our people are on the frontlines of so many different crises,” she said. “This is just one of them.”
The police crackdown had been ongoing since December, Morin said, and she went to see for herself.
“I had heard about this specific encampment that was Indigenous, so I decided to go check it out,” Morin told ICT. “I was there for a couple of days. I specialize in feature writing, so I try to do the best I can to get the most context, in-depth material, that I can.”
Morin had spent another day documenting voices and images of the intersecting crises of poverty, addiction and mental health, when the authorities moved in.
“I was interviewing the camp leader, and I was in a teepee,” she told ICT. “There were several other people in there. People were learning his story, learning about his life and what was happening and why he was there. We got notice that police were amassing outside. And I went outside the teepee and saw that the police were putting yellow crime scene tape around.”
As the police began to take down the camp and arrest people, Morin went to work. She identified herself as media and was told she would have to leave the area. She held her ground.
“Often, when our people are in these situations, they do face biases and brutality by authorities, including police,” she said. “This wasn’t my first rodeo, so … I just stated my rights in this situation and they decided to punish me for it directly.”
Morin said she did not interfere with the police officers but was capturing their actions on film.
“I was filming, and I was like, ‘I’m not leaving,’” she said.
Morin was charged with obstruction and then released with a promise to appear before a judge.
She waited until the very last moment to turn herself in for fingerprinting and a mugshot, expecting that the charges would be dropped at any moment.
They were not, so she went in for processing on Jan. 30, and was released again with a promise to appear before the court when required.
‘Blunt form of censorship’
A number of journalism and writers groups have spoken out against her arrest, including the Committee to Protect Journalists, the Indigenous Journalists Association and the Canadian Association of Journalists. Amnesty International has also condemned her arrest.
Katherine Jacobsen, the program coordinator in the U.S. and Canada for the Committee to Protect Journalists, called the arrest “censorship” and “intimidation.”
“We’re very concerned by the behaviour of the Edmonton Police toward Brandi Morin and local law enforcement’s decision to press charges against her despite the evidence that she was not in violation of Canadian law at the time of her arrest,” Jacobsen said.
Jacobsen said she believes the arrest was an attempt to silence Morin.
“Our research shows that arresting reporters serves as a blunt form of censorship,” Jacobsen said. “A journalist in handcuffs cannot get their story out. Beyond an initial detention, prosecuting reporters creates a harmful chilling effect and serves as a form of intimidation for their peers.”
The Indigenous Journalists Association also joined the calls to have the charges dropped.
“Whenever we see arrests or harassment of journalists increasing, it is alarming,” said Angel Ellis, Muscogee (Creek) Nation, who serves as chairwomen of the IJA Press Freedom Committee. “It means democracy is weakening. …It means journalists are having to take personal risks and shoulder tremendous stress to do their jobs. This systematic dismantling of the Fourth Estate will be felt by every citizen who depends on those journalists to have updated information.”
The arrest is further complicated by the disproportionate treatment of women in the Canadian criminal justice system. In Canada, Indigenous women represent about 4 percent of all women, but, as of 2022, represent more than 50 percent of the women incarcerated in the nation.
“We know Indigenous women are incarcerated at alarmingly disproportionate rates and that means that the Indigenous female journalist faces a triple threat to their inherent rights to tell stories,” Ellis said. “IJA will continue to stand with Brandi, her family, and the people who depend on the information she produces as she fights this broad overreach.”
David Matsinhe, director of policy, advocacy and research with Amnesty International Canada, called Morin “one of the boldest and most important journalists reporting on human rights in Canada today.”
Matsinhe joined the voices at the Jan. 29 online press conference in calling for the charges to be dropped.
“Without her courageous, thoughtful, empathetic reporting, our collective understanding of the human rights landscape in Canada, especially with respect to the rights of Indigenous nations, would be poor,” Matsinhe said. “Brandi’s arrest is an attack on these deeply important and well-established legal rights and standards. It sends a chilling message to journalists reporting on critical human rights issues, such as policing, homelessness, political protest and corporate accountability.”
Pillars of freedom
Morin appreciates the support she has received, but says the wheels of Canadian justice continue to turn.
“I’m really, really thankful that I’ve been receiving incredible support from the national and international press organizations, as well as human rights groups like Amnesty [International],” she said. “I was really encouraged by that, because it’s been a really dark time. I have colleagues that are supporting me on social media … and creating that awareness.
“But at the same time, I was kind of sidelined … because I was expecting for them to come to their senses, that this would be over with. I wasn’t thinking it was going to go this far.”
Morin said she started out to see where the camps had been and to see if anyone was around. But she realized she didn’t have the heart for it, so she went back home.
“It’s kind of like a mental torment,” she said. “And it’s kind of a waiting game. I just have to wait, day to day, [to see] what’s going to unfold. In the meantime, you know, I am disturbed by it. I’m affected, absolutely. I have hardly been able to concentrate on work. And I couldn’t even further pursue very much, the story that I was working on.”
Morin knew there was always a possibility that she would be arrested, considering the type of stories that she has been covering and a growing movement to limit journalistic freedoms.
But she wants people to realize that threats to freedom of the press is a threat to everyone.
“This is a pattern that’s been unfolding across North America, for journalists to be criminalized,” she said. “And it’s like, really scary when you think about it, because that coincides with the unfolding of democracy and the other pillars that hold up all of our freedoms.”
Our stories are worth telling. Our stories are worth sharing. Our stories are worth your support. Contribute $5 or $10 today to help ICT carry out its critical mission. Sign up for ICT’s free newsletter.