Nuclear Resister

Plowshares Activists Nabbed at Trident's Nuclear Bomb Bunkers

The five - Susan Crane, 65, of Baltimore, Maryland; Lynne Greenwald, 60, of Bremerton, Washington; Anne Montgomery, RSCJ, 83, of New York City; Bill "Bix" Bichsel, S. J., 81, of Tacoma, Washington; and Steve Kelly, SJ. , 60, of Oakland, California - acted in the tradition of the Plowshares movement of nonviolent direct action for disarmament, where hand tools are used to give form to the biblical prophecy of Isaiah, by beginning to beat swords into plowshares. The group was named by their mes...

Afghan Policy Provokes Protest

With only a week's notice, Hudson River Valley activists formed an ad hoc coalition of at least 15 local and national groups that called for a show of public opposition that evening, outside the U.S. Military Academy. At least 300 people turned up in Highland Falls, the riverside town next to the Academy. At Veteran's Park, they listened to several speakers and then formed a single-file candlelight procession, walking half a mile to Thayer Gate. After the arrest (her first), [Marilyn Ross] st...

Jailed for Disrupting Congress

In October, a Washington jury convicted Ellen Barfield, Pete Perry and Eve Tetaz of disrupting Congress last May when they spoke out for peace and scattered bloodstained currency in front of generals and politicians at a Senate Foreign Relations committee hearing on Afghanistan and Pakistan. Perry and Barfield were both sentenced on December 14; Tetaz's sentencing was delayed due to medical issues until January 25.

Please Sign Dr. Dhafir Support Petition

February 26, 2010 will mark seven years since the Iraqi-born oncologist was arrested as he drove to work in Rome, New York. On that day, in a raid widely trumpeted by officials from the U.S. Attorney General on down as hitting "supporters of terrorism", his home and office were searched and boxes of records seized while police and the FBI interrogated 150 people in central New York state, nearly all Muslim, who had donated funds to Help the Needy. Dr. [RafiT Dhafir] established this charity t...

Where We're At

Our friend John Heid moved out in September after living with us for 8 months. Happily he's still in Tucson - he and Leslie Klusmire have started a new Catholic Worker community here, Rose of the Desert, "focused on works of mercy and nonviolent resistance: 'to comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable'. To be in solidarity with the human rights struggle of immigrants. To resist the militarization of the borderlands." In mid-November, at the Southwest Catholic Worker gathering in Tucs...

Military Refusers

"I'm here today to make a stand beside you because I believe great wrongs have been perpetrated in Afghanistan," he told over 5,000 demonstrators. "I cannot, in good conscience, be part of them. I'm bound by law and moral duty to try and stop them. I'm a soldier, and I belong to the profession of arms. I expected to go to war, but I also expected that the need to defend this country's interests would be legal and justifiable. It's now apparent that the conflict is neither of these, and that's...

Tell Attorney General Holder: Executive Review Now! For Leonard Peltier

The Leonard Peltier Defense Offense Committee (LPDOC), together with Friends of Peltier and the International Peltier Forum, is asking supporters to put their face on the campaign seeking an executive review by the Department of Justice and Attorney General Eric Holder of the American Indian activist's case. As was done in the case of Alaska Senator Ted Stevens, where the criminal prosecution was essentially nullified in the face of misconduct by Department of Justice officials, Attorney Gene...

Witness for Human Rights at Fort Benning and Fort Huachuca

Fr. Bob Carney, Joshua Harris, John Heid, Mariah Klusmire, and Fr. Jerry Zawada were quickly stopped after they walked around the entrance barrier, and were arrested when they did not leave. Four were released within an hour. Joshua Harris initially refused to identify himself, instead saying only that he was there representing a victim of torture. He identified himself after learning he would be charged under Arizona law with trespass and refusing to provide a truthful name, and released ear...

Carl Kabat On Trial

At a November 6 motions hearing, prosecutors unsealed evidence bags taken from the scene, displaying banners and bread and wine for the court to view and mark as evidence. Each banner was read into the record.

War Tax Resister Facing Jail

Long-time Maine war tax resister Frank Donnelly pled guilty in U.S. District Court on November 23 to under-reporting his income to the IRS. Donnelly, who sold lobsters for a living, is facing sentencing in federal court in Bangor, Maine some time in early 2010. An anti-war and social justice activist in his hometown of Lamoine, Donnelly is facing up to a year or more in federal prison.

'Openly Declaring Nonviolent War'

For nearly six months (4/17/09 - 10/08/09), I was imprisoned in the Lancaster (Pennsylvania) County Prison, charged with three crimes: Possessing an Instrument of Crime, Disorderly Conduct and Criminal Mischief. The local media (newspapers, radio and television) "helped the public", by portraying me as simply being "an angry man who chose vandalism as a sedative". Omitted were the facts: The F.B.I, chose not to recommend federal prosecution (the agent actually said that he personally had no p...

No Peace, No Prize

On December 9, the day before the Nobel Peace Prize was to be publicly presented in Oslo, the latest names were read aloud. Then Jeff Dietrich, Catherine Morris, David Omondi, Mike Wisniewski and John Yvetich climbed the steps onto federal property and blocked the doorway while shouting "Obama!

New Mexico Drone Meeting Bars Protest

Not on the guest list were four members of the Trinity Nuclear Abolitionists from Albuquerque and a couple of CodePink women fresh from a week of vigiling outside Creech Air Force Base in Nevada, from where remote pilots wage robot warfare from the skies over Afghanistan and Pakistan. Less than five minutes into their openingday vigil against the use of drones as aerial assassins, the Trinity Nuclear Abolitionists were politely accosted at the resort by tribal police.

Vandenberg Vigiler Injured During Arrest

On November 4, military police demanded ID from the vigilers, suspecting some were attending in violation of previous ban and bar letters. World War ? veteran Bud Boothe refused, and was handcuffed. Police mishandled the longtime vigiler as they moved to lift him up, grabbing the handcuffs and leaving Boothe with a ripped shirt and three gashes in his arm.

Disarm Now Plowshares

We are called by Ezekiel to transform our own hearts and to invite all those whose hearts are hardened by blindness, fear, and mistrust of the "other" to allow theirs to be transformed into "hearts of flesh:" disarmed, compassionate, and generous. At the beginning of the International Decade of Disarmament, we join with the survivors of Hiroshima and Nagasaki and the 2020 Vision Campaign to abolish all nuclear weapons by that year at the latest. Nuclear weapons can never be guardians, defende...

Die-in at Space War Bazaar

The Prosecutor called out the next case, [Louis Vitale], and added that these last four cases were all on the same charge: failure to leave the Qwest Center. The Judge right away told us that he often attends events there and quickly asked the inmate before him what was his plea, guilty or not guilty? When Louis responded with "No contest", the Judge immediately stated "Five days in jail. If you had said guilty, you would have gotten three days." Father Louis tried to speak up to say he was a...

Montreal

Prince Charles was doubly damned by the Québécois a few weeks later when His Highness came to present regimental colors to the Black Watch of Canada in Montreal.

Raf Mildenhall

Iindis Percy of the Campaign for the Accountability of American Bases in Britain was arrested October 30 as she walked about the American Air Force Base at Mildenhall. She'd shown her ID to a military policeman and to her surprise, was waved through.

Edinburgh

We also call upon NATO to disarm its nuclear weapons. Trident - with around 160 warheads, each ten times as destructive as the Hiroshima bomb - is assigned to NATO, and the U.S. deploys hundreds of nuclear weapons at bases across Europe under the NATO alliance. This is in violation of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, under which nuclear weapons states are obligated to bring to a conclusion negotiations for disarmament of nuclear weapons. NATO's policy of deterrence threatens global peace...

Edo/Brighton

The EDO Decommissioners - [Elijah James Smith] James Smith, Tom Woodhead, Robert Nichols, Ornella Saibene, Robert Alford and Harvey Tadman - face serious charges for trashing a Brighton war merchant's business during the Israeli assault on Gaza one year ago. EDO-MBM is owned by the American multinational ITl, and makes parts for the widely used Paveway guided bombs and for bomb release racks on fighter planes used by Israel. The Decommissioners will be joined in the dock next May by three wit...

More Future Actions

From January 19 through February 2, the Peaceable Assembly Campaign of Voices for Creative Nonviolence will maintain a two week vigil at the White House and engage in regular acts of nonviolent direct action. After February 2, the Peaceable Assembly Campaign will focus its work upon Congress. Groups are urged to lobby in the home offices of representatives and senators who do not commit themselves publicly to oppose additional funding for the wars and occupations in Iraq and Afghanistan as we...

Update Files

OLYMPIA, WASHINGTON: Since the anti-war demonstrations at the city's port in November 2007, a number of women have been defending themselves against misdemeanor charges in Thurston County District Court. The last eight defendants, known as the Patient Eight, celebrated victory on October 30 after the gross misdemeanor charge of obstructing an officer was dismissed, and the lesser charge of attempted disorderly conduct was scheduled for dismissal on March 1 . Court fees of $50 were also assess...