The Nuclear Resister

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!

 » Read more…

World without War photo

from Jeewoo Yeo

Yeo-ok Yang and Jungmin Choi (activists with World Without War) and Reverend Bora Im (of Hyanglin Church) were put into prison on May 20.

They were sentenced to pay a fine of two million won each (approximately 2,000 USD) for taking a direct action to block the construction of Jeju Naval Base, which had been illegally undertaken without an agreement with local residents.

Instead of paying the fine, they chose to be imprisoned in a workhouse. Two million won is a large amount money for an activist. But that is not the main reason of their choices. They thought it is a violation of the constitutional rights to the freedom of assembly and association to impose heavy fines on activists taking a thoroughly nonviolent way of resistance against wrongful state policies.

 » Read more…

Photo by Leonard Eiger, Ground Zero Center for Nonviolent Action

by Leonard Eiger, Ground Zero Center for Nonviolent Action

Silverdale, Washington, May 10, 2014: Activists from Ground Zero Center for Nonviolent Action, in Poulsbo, Washington staged a tea party at the main gate of Naval Base Kitsap-Bangor, the West Coast home port for the U.S. nuclear ballistic missile submarine fleet.

Protesters walked onto the roadway in successive waves, briefly blocking the entrance, and offered tea and cookies to the Washington State Patrol officers standing in the median. Officers escorted them from the roadway and cited them for walking on the roadway where prohibited.

 » Read more…

Photo by Keith Wrightson, DC Media Group

from National Campaign for Nonviolent Resistance

After getting no response to a letter to the director of the National Security Agency, twenty activists went to Fort Meade, Maryland on May 3 to seek a meeting. First, they gathered alongside Route 32 to read the names of children killed by U.S. drone strikes and hold a die-in to represent victims of a drone attack. The die-in continued for about 20 minutes, and Janice Sevre-Duszynska, a Roman Catholic woman priest, wailed and ministered to the victims. Dick Ochs performed a drone song he had written and played the guitar.

The activists then headed to the guard station to seek a meeting with someone in a policy-making role. As they marched, they sang Peace, Salaam, Shalom. NSA police arrested Ellen Barfield, Marilyn Carlisle and Manijeh Saba when they refused to leave the roadway outside the base’s gates.

 » Read more…

from Free the Nato 3

On April 25 in the Cook County Criminal Courthouse, the NATO 3 were sentenced to between 5 and 8 years in prison. The prosecutors had argued that they should receive 14 years and serve their sentences consecutively, whereas the defense attorneys had obviously argued that they should receive light sentences, if not simply being sentenced to time served. Brian Jacob Church was sentenced to 5 years, Brent Betterly to 6 years, and Jared Chase to 8 years. They will all serve this time at 50% of the sentenced time (e.g., 6 year sentence equals 3 years served) and will receive credit for the two years they have served pending trial. Upon release, they will each have two years of supervised release as well.

 » Read more…