Snow delays sentencing of Transform Now Plowshares

Posted on January 28, 2014

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by Jack Cohen-Joppa

Today’s sentencing hearing in federal court in Knoxville, Tennessee for three nuclear disarmament activists was continued to February 18 after a winter storm forced early closure of the courthouse.

By the time Federal Court Judge Amul Thapar suspended proceedings shortly after lunch, he had heard mitigating arguments and testimony from character witnesses on behalf of defendants Greg Boertje-Obed, Sr. Megan Rice SHCJ, and Michael Walli. The prosecution had asked that the court impose the maximum sentence recommended under federal guidelines, and pay $52,000 restitution. The defendants have yet to address the court, and will be heard along with closing arguments from their attorneys and prosecutors when the court reconvenes in February.

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U.N. Special Rapporteur on the Rights of Indigenous People visits Leonard Peltier in prison

Posted on January 28, 2014
Leonard Peltier. AP photo.

Leonard Peltier. AP photo.

from the International Leonard Peltier Defense Committee

“… new consideration should be given to clemency for Leonard Peltier.” Professor James Anaya

On Friday January 24, 2014, United Nations Special Rapporteur, Professor James Anaya visited United States Penitentiary Coleman 1 in Florida, to meet with American Indian political prisoner Leonard Peltier. Professor Anaya was accompanied by Leonard “Lenny ” Foster, member of the Board of Directors of the International Indian Treaty Council (IITC), Supervisor of the Navajo Nations Correction Project, and Spiritual Advisor to Mr. Peltier for nearly 30 years.

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Protester arrested for trespassing at Y-12 nuclear weapons complex in Oak Ridge, TN

Posted on January 27, 2014
photo sent by Ralph Hutchison

photo by Ralph Hutchison

Christopher Spicer, a graduate student at Boston College’s Master of Divinity program, was arrested by Oak Ridge City Police and charged with trespass when he apparently stepped across the blue-line boundary at the Y-12 Nuclear Weapons Complex in Oak Ridge, Tennessee on Sunday, January 26, 2014.

Spicer was attending the Sunday vigil sponsored by the Oak Ridge Environmental Peace Alliance and had been listening to a reading of the testimony of former U.S. Attorney General Ramsey Clark, who testified in federal court in Knoxville in April 2013 at a motions hearing in the Transform Now Plowshares case.

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Letters from a Georgia Jail: Anti-Nuclear Activists Await Sentencing

Posted on January 23, 2014
Greg Boertje-Obed, Sr. Megan Rice and Michael Walli - photo by Ralph Hutchison

Greg Boertje-Obed, Sr. Megan Rice and Michael Walli – photo by Ralph Hutchison

from religionandpolitics.org

By David Cook

We are truly human when we act responsibly to restore harmony and act with love and compassion to restore truth, transparency and the equitable distribution of the resources endowed by our common Creator.

This sentence was written in black ink on an 8×12 white sheet of paper from inside the state penitentiary in Ocilla, Georgia, by an 83-year old nun. Her name is Megan Rice. The American government considers her a criminal.

In the early morning on Saturday, July 28, 2012, Rice broke into one of the most secure places in the world: the Y-12 National Security Complex in Oak Ridge, Tennessee. With her, two other Christian peace activists: Michael Walli and Greg Boertje-Obed. Using bolt cutters, they clipped holes in the chain-link fencing, crept past multiple layers—dogs, alarms, watchtowers, armed guards in the kill zone—into the inner chamber of an American nuclear weapons complex, the place that birthed the atomic bomb, the place that continues to birth our nation’s weapons of mass destruction.

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Nine women arrested at Entergy Headquarters in Brattleboro

Posted on January 23, 2014
photo by Hattie Nestel

photo by Hattie Nestel

from Shut it Down affinity group

BRATTLEBORO, Vermont—Acting on their conviction that governments, regulatory agencies, and corporations fail to honor the public trust, nine women of the Shut It Down Affinity Group went to Entergy Corporation headquarters on Old Ferry Road January 15 to demand the immediate shut down of Entergy’s 42-year-old Vermont Yankee nuclear power plant in Vernon.

Brattleboro police arrested the women when they refused to move from the main headquarters door when Entergy officials ignored their demands. Lieutenant Jeremy Evans led the police detachment. The women were booked on site and released pending charges and a court date.

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Activists honor Dr. King by acting against nuclear weapons; 11 arrested at Bangor sub base and Lockheed Martin

Posted on January 20, 2014
photo by Leonard Eiger

photo by Leonard Eiger

by Leonard Eiger

On January 18, 2014 activists from a Puget Sound-based nuclear abolition group engaged in a nonviolent direct action at the US Navy’s West Coast nuclear submarine and nuclear weapons base.

Members of Ground Zero Center for Nonviolent Action held a peaceful vigil and nonviolent direct action at the main gate to Naval Base Kitsap-Bangor in Silverdale, Washington.  They protested the U.S. government’s continued deployment of the Trident nuclear weapons system, and increasing military presence in Asia due to its Asia-Pacific Pivot.  Its continued reliance on nuclear weapons as an instrument of foreign policy by force projection is in contravention of both U.S. and international laws.

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Irish peace activist Margaretta D’Arcy jailed

Posted on January 16, 2014

1528684_642207175824799_1378867045_nfrom The Irish Times by Lorna Siggins
[trial report from the Nuclear Resister follows this update]

Margaretta D’Arcy arrested in Galway yesterday

A 79-year old feminist, peace activist, film-maker and member of Aosdána has been jailed for three months in Limerick Prison in relation to protests over US military use of Shannon Airport. [Send her a card - address here]

Margaretta D’Arcy, who is undergoing cancer treatment, was arrested at her Galway home yesterday morning after she refused to sign a bond to uphold the law and keep away from unauthorised zones at Shannon.

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Navy base foes in & out of Jeju court & jail

Posted on January 3, 2014
Photo by Choi Hye-Young

Photo by Choi Hye-Young

by Jack Cohen-Joppa, the Nuclear Resister, December 18, 2013

This fall the Korean Prime Minister’s office declared that the conflict over the naval base in Gangjeong village had been resolved. “The disclosure came as a surprise to the villagers, who still meet hundreds of police every day,” reports Gangjeong Village Story (GVS). “They denounced the Park government, asking how the situation could be considered resolved when the village is under a Martial Law-like situation with even rallies prohibited. They further criticized the government for pretending that the villagers’ claims are unreasonable or that there is nothing wrong with the base construction.”

GVS reports that Jeju congresswoman Jang Ha-Na declared in October that recent independent surveys demonstrate that, “Compared to last year, the soft corals, endangered species in the Gangjeong Sea, are dying from mysterious causes or have stopped growing. It has also been confirmed that floating detritus from the construction is forming deposits in various locations.” Furthermore, she said that the police and prosecutors have unjustly arrested and imprisoned citizen monitors 55 times between January 2012 and September 2013.

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Quaker’s anti-war beliefs land him in jail

Posted on January 2, 2014

Photo by David Lee

Photo by David Lee

from the Register-Star

by John Mason, Columbia-Greene Media 

Dr. Joseph Olejak, a chiropractor with a successful practice in Delmar, is spending his weekends in Columbia County Jail for the next six months.

On Oct. 17, Judge Thomas McAvoy of the Federal District Court of Northern New York found Olejak guilty of the charge of willful failure to file an income tax form, something the defendant had failed to do for nearly 20 years.

He was sentenced to 26 weekends in jail and payment of $240,000 in back taxes. In addition, he’s doing community service at the Northeast Regional Food Bank, and is looking for other placements as well.

Olejak, a Quaker, withholds taxes because he’s a passionate opponent of war.

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NATO Summit protester released after 19 months in prison

Posted on December 12, 2013

From Uptown People’s Law Center

CHICAGO – Mark Neiweem, a 29-year-old native Chicago activist, was released this morning, December 12, from Pontiac Correctional Center after serving 19 months of two concurrent 3-year sentences.

In the lead-up to the NATO protests of May 2012, Neiweem was one of several activists targeted by undercover police officers for his political views and as part of a larger effort to justify the millions of taxpayer dollars spent on police during the NATO summit.

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