Tre Arrow

Environmentalist and refugee hopeful, Tre Arrow has been incarcerated in Canada for over two years. He is being imprisoned while awaiting a possible extradition to the United States, where he faces 80 years in prison for a crime he did not commit. Like the 125 000 American draft dodgers who came to Canada between 1964 and 1977, Tre came to Canada hoping to escape persecution in the United States. This became Tre's only option when his life in Portland, Oregon was unjustly turned upside down in the Summer of 2002.

The US government is accusing him of masterminding the arson of logging machinery, an arson which three people already plead guilty to and served time for. They were facing a potential 80 years, but after spending four consecutive days being interrogated by the FBI, they said that Tre planned it all and made them do it. For their accusal, they got their sentences reduced to 3.5 years.

After working tirelessly for years to protect some of the only ancient forests left in the North Western US, Tre had become an extremely well-known and important organizer. Like other organizers, Tre found himself at the forefront of a movement which successfully interfered with industrial powers, and he therefore became a target. Called an 'eco-terrorist' throughout the media, the public's mind has been so inundated with the idea that he is a terrorist that his chances for a fair trial have been ruined, and that is the basis for his argument against extradition.

In the summer of 2005, a BC supreme court judge ruled that he should be extradited to the US, a decision which Tre appealed. His fate then landed in the hands of the Minister of Justice, Vic Toews, after Tre appealed that decision. In April, Vic Toews also felt Tre should be extradited, and now his legal team is appealing that decision, which is a process that will likely take many months, if not years, to come to an end.

You can visit Tre's support page for information on him, his case, and how you can help out.

Download 28:38  Recorded March 1, 2006

The term 'eco-terrorist', used with impunity to ruin people's reputations in the mainstream media, is a word crafted by a sick and dangerous man named Ron Arnold. I highly recommend checking out this Wikipedia page on him and his work. The page also has an excellent list of links for you to learn more about the intense right-wing war against all those who care for and defend the earth. Ron, considered an "expert on eco-terrorism", is quoted in the Toronto Star as saying, "Our goal is to destroy, to eradicate the environmental movement ... We're mad as hell. We're not going to take it anymore. We're dead serious - we're going to destroy them," he said. "We want to be able to exploit the environment for private gain, absolutely ... and we want people to understand that is a noble goal." This is the guy who is paid $3000 a day to advise government and business agencies on how to deal with environmentalists.