Two blockades at Lakenheath base in the UK result in 10 arrests

Photo by Milo Chandler

from Lakenheath Alliance for Peace

At 9:30 a.m. on April 25, fourteen women, intersex, non-binary and trans activists (FINT) – aged from 24 to 91 – held a blockade of the main gate of USAF Lakenheath, denouncing the deadly entanglements between militarism, climate change, authoritarianism and genocide. Ten activists were topless with chains around their wrists and tape over their mouths to expose the vulnerability and silencing faced by FINT people under systems of war, climate collapse, and oppression. Their bodies were painted with the words “Violence,” “Displacement,” “Brutality,” “Exploitation,” “Silencing” and “Oppression”. They stood hand in hand forming a powerful image blockading the vast military complex. War and climate change are both strongly linked to gender-based violence around the world. Four activists, including two of our international participants, stood behind them displaying flags and a banner saying “Break The Chain”.

 » Read more…

Good Friday arrests at Lockheed Martin in Pennsylvania

FOR-USA photo

Interfaith Peace Witness Leads to Arrest of 25 at Lockheed Martin Facility in King of Prussia

by Paul Magno, Isaiah Project

On April 18, 2025, I stood with 24 fellow activists in a powerful interfaith act of witness outside Lockheed Martin in King of Prussia, Pennsylvania. It was Good Friday—a day that, within Christian tradition, remembers Jesus’ death, and its embodiment of loving sacrifice, nonviolence, and the call to justice. Together, we gathered not just as individuals, but as a united front of people of conscience, representing a broad array of faith-based groups, to speak out against war and the machinery that fuels it.

Over two hundred people of faith and conscience gathered for the demonstration, organized by the Brandywine Peace Community, Red Letter Christians and the Fellowship of Reconciliation, which brought together voices from Christian, Jewish, Muslim, Buddhist, and Quaker communities—each bringing their own prayers, chants, and sacred presence. We marked the day with songs of peace, solemn reflection, and the tolling of bells as we moved in silent procession toward the entrance of the largest weapons manufacturer in the world.

 » Read more…

Holy Thursday arrests at General Dynamics/Electric Boat

Photo by Rose McPartland

On April 17, Holy Thursday, seven participants of a Holy Week peace pilgrimage in Connecticut were arrested while blocking the entrance leading to the engineering building of General Dynamics/Electric Boat. Before they were arrested, together with the other peace walkers, they performed a foot washing in the road and held long banners that read “Holy Thursday: Jesus Commanded ‘Love One Another'” and “Stop Engineering the End of the World.” 

Ellen Grady, Clare Grady, Linden Jenkins, Steve Baggarly, Dimitri Kadiev, Karen Gargamelli-McCreight and Chris Spicer Hankle were charged with disorderly conduct, and appeared for their arraignment in Connecticut Superior Court in New London on Thursday, May 1. Five of the activists took the community service that was offered. Chris Spicer and Steve Baggarly are waiting to be notified about a trial date.

 » Read more…

3 peace walkers arrested at Creech AFB, 3 more at Nevada nuclear test site

Photo of Catherine Hourcade by John Amidon

During the Nevada Desert Experience’s annual Holy Week Sacred Peace Walk, protesters blocked the gate at Nevada’s Creech Air Force Base on April 16 at 7:15 a.m. About a dozen peace walkers stood in the road until the Las Vegas Metro Police declared it an illegal assembly and threatened to arrest them. Amaya Rodriguez, Catherine Hourcade and Sylver Pondolfino refused to leave the road and were arrested. The three activists were issued a citation for “pedestrian in the road way”, and were instructed to appear on May 28 in Las Vegas Municipal Court. 

The group then continued the remainder of their 60 mile pilgrimage, which concluded at the Nevada National Security Site (NNSS, formerly called the Nevada Test Site) at Mercury, Nevada. On April 18, Western Shoshone spiritual leader Johnnie Bobb held a traditional sunrise ceremony. After a Good Friday Stations of the Cross procession, the group walked to the NNSS boundary line and gathered in the road. They shared messages about their concerns: nuclear weapons development and testing, the Site’s illegal occupation of Western Shoshone land, the continued misuse of resources and environmental destruction.

 » Read more…

Lenten resistance at the Ministry of Defence

from Catholic Peace Action

Dear Friend,

Here is what we have been up to this Lent!

After moments of prayer and reflection, under the beautiful, sparkling blue spring sky, Ray, Dan and Carmel approached the front entrance of the Ministry of Defence in London on April 2.

It was unguarded, with only a trickle of workers entering and leaving. Ray climbed the steps and onto the plinth under the sign labelling the building.

He wrote everything he had planned to write in charcoal under the mark of a cross. “Trident is genocide, choose life not terror”.

He stood with his arms out and palms open indicating his non-violence and waited.

 » Read more…

Post-prison reflection from Brian Terrell

Chris Danowski & Brian Terrell

The Only Sane Solution…

Resisting Nuclear Weapons in Europe

“We still hold that nonviolent resistance is the only sane solution, and that we have to continue to make our voice heard until we are finally silenced–and even then, in jail or concentration camp, to express ourselves.” Dorothy Day, co-founder of the Catholic Worker, 1940

March 22, 2025

Brian Terrell

When I arrived at Amsterdam’s Schiphol airport on February 20, my passport was flagged and I was informed that due to a previous arrest at Volkel airbase, where a U.S. Airforce squadron keeps 20 nuclear bombs ready to load onto Dutch planes in a NATO “nuclear sharing” arrangement, I was banned from entering Europe and would be immediately flown back to the United States. I explained to the immigration officer that I had an order from a German court to turn myself in to the prison at Wittlich on February 26 for a 15-day sentence for taking direct action at Büchel, the German airbase where there is a similar nuclear sharing relationship in 2019. After a short wait my passport was returned and I was waved through the queue to join my good friend Chris Danowski patiently waiting in the arrivals area to take me to Jeanette Noel Huis, the Catholic Worker in Amsterdam.

 » Read more…

Seventeen arrests in NYC during protest in support of nuclear ban treaty

Photo by Hideko Otake

On March 5, 17 people were arrested in New York City at the U.S. Mission to the United Nations during a protest in support of the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons. Participants asked for a meeting with the interim U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. and were refused. Others blocked First Avenue with a giant banner reading “U.S. Join the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons.”

March 5th was the 55th anniversary of the entry into force of the Treaty on the Nonproliferation of Nuclear Weapons, which legally binds the U.S. to complete nuclear disarmament at an early date. It was also Ash Wednesday, the beginning of the Christian penitential season of Lent. Another banner held by protesters read, “Nuclear War Means the World in Ashes.” Archbishop John Wester of Santa Fe, New Mexico and author of the only Catholic pastoral letter on nuclear disarmament, distributed ashes prior to the protest.

From March 3-7, the Third Meeting of States Parties to the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons took place at the U.N. “Half of the world’s countries have either ratified or signed the treaty and the U.S. won’t send anyone across the street to observe what is happening with the only treaty negotiated to facilitate global, verifiable nuclear disarmament,” said Kelly Lundeen of Nukewatch. “The U.S. is the key to nuclear disarmament and must sign the treaty and organize the other nuclear armed states to join.”

 » Read more…

Two nuclear resisters arrested during Ash Wednesday witness at Tucson’s Raytheon plant

Photo by Felice Cohen-Joppa

Members of the Pacific Life Community from California, Oregon, Washington, Texas, Nevada and Arizona met in St. David, Arizona from March 3–6 for their annual gathering and nuclear weapons protest. Two members of the faith-based network were arrested on Ash Wednesday, March 5 during a nonviolent resistance action at the Raytheon weapons factory in Tucson, Arizona. 

In April, 2020 the Pentagon named Raytheon in Tucson as the sole-source contractor for a $16 billion dollar program to develop and produce the Long-Range Stand-Off (LRSO) missile, an all-new nuclear-armed cruise missile to be launched from the wings of warplanes. Production of this missile violates the spirit and letter of the 2017 United Nations Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons, which entered into force in January 2021. The Treaty’s Third Meeting of States Parties was taking place at the United Nations in New York City the same week as the Pacific Life Community gathering and action.

 » Read more…

South Korean Catholic priest arrested for October protest of Jeju Naval Base

[Statement] Condemning the police who responded to peaceful actions of nonviolent civil disobedience with arrest! Jeju is not a U.S. colony! Close the Jeju Naval Base that is turning Jeju into an outpost of the U.S. against China! 

At 1:30 p.m. on February 26, police arrested Fr. Sung Hwan Kim, a peacekeeper in Gangjeong and director of the St. Francis Peace Center, on charges of obstruction of business and obstruction of official business. During the arrest, police followed Fr. Kim for over two hours. As usual, Fr. Kim celebrated the 11:00 a.m. Catholic Mass, had lunch with other visiting priests at an outside restaurant, and then moved to an outside café. The police monitored the entire process, which is a clear violation of human rights. 

 » Read more…

Leonard Peltier is out of prison!!

Photo by Angel White Eyes for NDN Collective

 

A beautiful and historic day –

This morning, February 18, at 8:40 a.m. eastern time, Leonard Peltier walked out of FCI Coleman in Florida and is headed home to the Turtle Mountain reservation in North Dakota!!

He still has restrictions of home confinement, but after almost 50 years, he is no longer in a prison cell.  

After 45 years of the Nuclear Resister reporting on and encouraging support for Leonard Peltier, today, with full and grateful hearts, we join many thousands of people around the world welcoming him out of prison!

 » Read more…