The Nuclear Resister networks the anti-nuclear and anti-war resistance movement while acting as a clearinghouse for information about contemporary nonviolent resistance to war and the nuclear threat. Our emphasis is on support for the women and men jailed for these actions. This blog is the online companion to the quarterly Nuclear Resister newsletter, a more comprehensive chronicle. » Read more…
Liz McAlister and Erica Brock
Order of Protection Delivered for the Children of the World
On July 23, eight Atlantic Life Community activists joined with Upstate Drone Action at the main gate of Hancock Air Base in Syracuse, New York. Hancock is the home of the 174th Attack Wing of the New York State Air National Guard. The 174th Attack Wing pilots weaponized MQ9 Reaper drones over Afghanistan – killing and terrorizing an uncountable number of civilians.
The eight delivered a People’s War Crimes Indictment to the Hancock chain of command by affixing it to the fence after it was refused by base personnel. Also delivered was an Order of Protection on behalf of the children of the world who are subject to U.S. drone surveillance and attack.
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UK nuclear weapons convoy
Just after midnight on July 11, a military vehicle convoy which included lorries carrying Trident nuclear bombs, passed through the center of Glasgow, Scotland. Four Faslane Peace campers were arrested when they blockaded the convoy for an hour close to Loch Lomond. One of the activists climbed atop the vehicles.
Francesco Bertozzi (23), Heather Stewart (29), Jamie Watson (32) and another peace camper were arrested and spent the weekend in jail until an initial court appearance. They then learned that only one of them is being prosecuted, for breaching the peace and resisting arrest.
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UPDATE: GRADY FLORES RELEASED ON APPEAL ON JULY 17 (scroll below for details)
Base’s Order of Protection Begs Judgement
On July 10, Mary Anne Grady Flores, grandmother of three, was sentenced to one year in prison for being found guilty of violating an order of protection. A packed courtroom of over 100 supporters was stunned as she was led away, and vowed to continue the resistance.
These orders of protection, typically used in domestic violence situations or to protect a victim or witness to a crime, have been issued to people participating in nonviolent resistance actions at Hancock Air Base since late 2012. The base, near Syracuse, New York, pilots unmanned Reaper drones over Afghanistan, and trains drone pilots, sensor operators and maintenance technicians. The orders had been issued to “protect” Colonel Earl Evans, Hancock’s mission support commander, who wanted to keep protesters “out of his driveway.”
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by Jane Stoever, PeaceWorks, Kansas City
Carl Kabat, 80, a priest in the Order of Mary Immaculate, splashed paint on the huge entry sign at the National Security Campus at 10 a.m. on July 4. He then sat by the sign, awaiting arrest.
This was Kabat’s fourth July “interdependence action” in successive years at the so-called campus, the new home for the Kansas City Plant (in Kansas City, Missouri), where the National Nuclear Security Administration now makes and procures non-nuclear parts for nuclear weapons.
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Priests, nuns and local residents form a human chain and refuse to leave the protest camp blocking the construction site of electronic transmission tower No. 129, June 11. (By Kim Bong-gyu, Hankyoreh staff photographer)
KEPCO says construction of power towers back on track
from The Korea Times by Kim Se-jeong
Police on Wednesday (june 11) forcibly removed sit-in camps where some residents of Miryang, South Gyeongsang Province, have been protesting for years against a power transmission tower project.
The action prompted a violent clash with the protesters. Witnesses said 19 people sustained injuries during the clash. Fourteen were taken to a local hospital.
For the past few years, hundreds of villagers have set up makeshift houses on the tops of mountains in Milyang to stop the construction of high-voltage transmission towers by the state-run Korea Electric Power Corp., or KEPCO.
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ActionAWE photo
from ActionAWE
The Burghfield wing of the Atomic Weapons Establishment (AWE) in Berkshire has seen its biggest protest in years, with the three road entrances to the site blocked for nearly five hours the morning of June 9 in a blockade organised by Trident Ploughshares as part of the ongoing ActionAWE grassroots campaign dedicated to halting nuclear weapons production at the Atomic Weapons Establishment.
Opponents of the Trident nuclear weapons system locked themselves to cars and to each other to prevent traffic entering the site to carry out construction work. Although there have been protests at the site in the past, this is the first time that an unannounced protest has blocked access via all three roads.
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photo by Shane Franklin
by Jane Stoever and Ann Suellentrop
PeaceWorks – Kansas City held 4 actions over the May 31-June 1 weekend. On Saturday morning, May 31, we held two rallies in Leavenworth, Kansas. At one rally, we sought pardon for Chelsea (formerly Bradley) Manning at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas. She’s begun serving 35 years there for revealing U.S. war crimes in Iraq and Afghanistan. The second rally, two miles up the road at the Federal Penitentiary, called for pardon for Greg Boertje-Obed, now serving about 5 years in the pen for the Y-12 Transform Now Plowshares action against nuclear weapons at the uranium processing site in Oak Ridge, Tennessee.
Saturday afternoon we went to the old Kansas City Plant for making parts for nuclear weapons, to demand comprehensive cleanup of about 900 known toxins there. The contaminants have poisoned workers at the Kansas City Plant and other federal agencies at the Bannister Federal Complex.
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by Christine Legere, from the Cape Cod Times
May 12, 2014
PLYMOUTH – Four members of a Cape-based activist group were arrested Sunday, May 11 for trespassing onto the Pilgrim Nuclear Power Station property to plant flowers.
Diane Turco, a Harwich resident and founder of the Cape Downwinders, and group members Sarah Thacher and Susan Carpenter of Dennis, and Mary Conathan of Chatham, were arraigned Monday in Plymouth District Court on charges of trespassing.
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by Kathy Kelly
[Followed by an article by Dr. Hakim]
May 24, 2014
Jeju Island, South Korea – For the past two weeks, I’ve been in the Republic of Korea (ROK), as a guest of peace activists living in Gangjeong Village on ROK’s Jeju Island. Gangjeong is one of the ROK’s smallest villages, yet activists here, in their struggle against the construction of a massive naval base, have inspired people around the world.
Since 2007, activists have risked arrests, imprisonment, heavy fines and wildly excessive use of police force to resist the desecration caused as mega-corporations like Samsung and Daelim build a base to accommodate U.S. nuclear-powered aircraft carriers and submarines for their missions throughout Asia. The base fits the regional needs of the U.S. for a maritime military outpost that would enable it to continue developing its Asia Pivot strategy, gradually building towards and in the process provoking superpower conflict with China.
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from SOA Watch
Last week, Washington, DC activists helped kick off SOA Watch’s poster campaign to remember the martyrs and expose the killers. On Wednesday, May 14, a group of about a dozen activists came together to paste up a giant mural on the streets of the Adams Morgan neighborhood of Washington, DC.
Though the activists were peaceful in their actions, DC police decided that political art was unacceptable in the district. After the artwork was completed, four of the activists were handcuffed, arrested and held for 6 hours before being charged with “defacing public or private property.” The charge carries a maximum penalty of 6 months in prison and a $1,000 fine. SOA Watch activists Dominique Diaddigo-Cash, Gail Taylor, Maria Luisa Rosal and Nico Udu-gama will be arraigned in US Superior Court on June 5, 2014. The best way to stand in solidarity with the targeted activists, and to push back against the criminalization of dissent, is to keep up the resistance!
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