Twelve nuclear disarmament activists arrested at Lockheed Martin in California

Posted on March 3, 2015
photo by Felice Cohen-Joppa

photo by Felice Cohen-Joppa

To conclude the 2015 gathering of the Pacific Life Community, 80 activists held a colorful and lively demonstration on Monday, March 2 at Lockheed Martin in Sunnyvale, California, protesting nuclear weapons work and other weapons for war.

After sharing poetry, litany, dancing and songs, twelve of the protesters spread across the entrance roadway with a 50 foot banner that read “Lockheed Weapons Terrorize the World” to stop traffic going into the weapons plant.

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Three Trident Ploughshares activists arrested at Faslane naval base in Scotland

Posted on February 22, 2015
Trident Ploughshares Photo

Photo by Douglas Shaw

from the Trident Ploughshares

On Sunday, February 22, three Trident Ploughshares activists were arrested at Faslane naval base after attempting to paint peace slogans on the perimeter fence. One person was charged with vandalism while the other two were detained after pinning a set of “Peace Pirate Articles” to the fence.

Jean Oliver, from Biggar, Janet Fenton from Edinburgh and David Mackenzie from Largs are known as the Peaton Peace Pirates (the “PPP”), and are careful to distinguish themselves from the sectarian splinter group known as the Peace Pirates From Peaton (the “PPFP”).

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Six arrested on Ash Wednesday at killer drone protest at Beale Air Base

Posted on February 22, 2015
photo by Paula Orloff

photo by Paula Orloff

On the afternoon of February 18, six people – including several clergy members and military veterans – were arrested during an Ash Wednesday service at the gate of Beale Air Force Base during an act of “repentance” for the innocent people killed by the U.S. government’s fleet of killer drones.

Participants spread ashes memorializing those of children killed by U.S. drones overseas. The four women and two men who crossed the line also carried an indictment with them onto the base (see indictment below). They were charged with trespassing onto federal land and taken into custody by military police.

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~ from USP Coleman, by Leonard Peltier

Posted on February 17, 2015

peltier logoFebruary 2015 Update/Statement From Leonard Peltier

Greetings My Friends, Relatives and Supporters:

I know that many of you have concerns about the status of my situation and have been wanting an update about what is going on. A lot has been happening in the last few months and I am sorry I have not written in a while. The deaths over this last year have been hard to accept, including the recent loss of my Sister Vivian. I want to deeply thank everyone for your loving words, prayers and also for helping my son Chauncey pay for her funeral expenses, I am humbled beyond what my words can express.

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~ from FMC Lexington, by Kathy Kelly

Posted on February 12, 2015
Photo by Buddy Bell, taken of Kathy Kelly on January 23, shortly before she began her 3 month prison sentence

Photo by Buddy Bell, taken of Kathy Kelly on January 23, shortly before she began her 3 month prison sentence

The Shift

reprint of a letter from Kathy Kelly

“We must rapidly begin the shift from a thing-oriented society to a person oriented society: when machines and computers, profit motives and property rights are considered more important than people, the giant triplets of racism, extreme materialism and militarism are incapable of being conquered.” – Martin Luther King Jr., “Beyond Vietnam”

Here in Lexington federal prison, Atwood Hall defies the normal Bureau of Prisons fixation on gleaming floors and spotless surfaces. Creaky, rusty, full of peeling paint, chipped tiles, and leaky plumbing, Atwood just won’t pass muster.

But of the four federal prisons I’ve lived in, this particular “unit” may be the most conducive to mental health. Generally, the Bureau of Prisons system pushes guards to value buffed floors more than the people buffing the floors, walking the floors. Here, the atmosphere seems less uptight, albeit tinged with resigned acceptance that everyone is more or less “stuck” in what one prisoner described as “the armpit of the system.”

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Villagers and supporters on Jeju Island arrested, injured during government-ordered crackdown and demolition of protest site

Posted on January 31, 2015

1510500_10155127526210076_1407622643831701220_nby Felice Cohen-Joppa

[Thanks to Paco for his sharing of breaking news and the Gangjeong Village Story newsletter for background information.  Please scroll down to read the first-hand account from Ddalgi (Gangjeong villager).]

Resistance to the construction of a naval base on Jeju Island, S. Korea, which began in 2007, continues with daily mass/blockades, 100 ritual bows, community meals and other activities. More than 600 villagers and supporters have been arrested over the years, and many have spent time in jail.

An intense confrontation with authorities took place in Gangjeong Village on Saturday, January 31. There are initial reports of 24 arrests throughout the day, including the mayor, vice-mayor, priests and nuns.

Activists began to gather during the previous night, building barricades and a watchtower, with the aim of protecting a sit-in tent from government-ordered demolition. The protest tent had been erected on October 24 outside of the construction site for military housing in the center of Gangjeong Village, next to the primary school.

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One peace activist gets a $5,000 fine, another gets five years probation for entering Ft. Benning during protest to close the SOA

Posted on January 29, 2015
eve nashua 2015 2-1

photo by María Luisa Rosal

from the Ledger-Enquirer

by Ben Wright

One School of Americas Watch protester was sentenced to five years probation and another was slapped with a maximum $5,000 fine Thursday for trespassing onto Fort Benning during the annual protest in November.

U.S. Magistrate Stephen Hyles sentenced Robert Norman Chantal, 62, of Americus to five years probation after pleading guilty and stating that he wouldn’t enter the post again. Chantal was dressed in a sad clown face during the Nov. 23 protest on Benning Road to close the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation.

Calling 83-year-old Eve Tetaz a bad citizen, the judge sentenced the longtime activist to pay a $5,000 fine but the woman with a many medical issues avoided prison time. She must pay the fine in 30 days or make arrangements, one of her attorneys said outside District Court.

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28-Year Crime Sprees of a Peacenik and a Colonel

Posted on January 28, 2015
Bonnie Urfer

Bonnie Urfer

from counter punch

by John LaForge

A former Army Brigadier General was busted two ranks and fined $20,000 this year after being charged with sexual assault of an Army Captain — a subordinate he reportedly threatened to kill if she revealed their affair. Jeffrey A. Sinclair’s multiple convictions should have gotten him thrown out of the military, sent to prison and registered as a sexual predator, but the judge in the case, Col. James L. Pohl, allowed him to retire as a Lt. Col. with full benefits and a $105,000 pension. Sinclair, 51, spent 28 years in the Army.

Meanwhile Nukewatch just celebrated the retirement of peace activist Bonnie Urfer, 62, who has stopped answering the Nukewatch phone after co-directing here for 28 years.

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Appeal hearing scheduled on sabotage charge for three imprisoned nuclear disarmament activists

Posted on January 26, 2015

Security Breach HEUMFThe Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals has assigned the oral argument on the sabotage charge in the case of the Transform Now Plowshares – Greg Boertje-Obed, Michael Walli and Sr. Megan Rice – for March 12 at 9 a.m. in Cincinnati, Ohio.

Each side will be given 15 minutes to argue. The decision will probably come out weeks later.

For more information about the Transform Now Plowshares, click here.

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A Future in Prison

Posted on January 23, 2015
photo by Shane Franklin

photo by Shane Franklin

by Kathy Kelly

January 22, 2015

The Bureau of Prisons contacted me today, assigning me a prison number and a new address: for the next 90 days, beginning tomorrow, I’ll live at FMC Lexington, in the satellite prison camp for women, adjacent to Lexington’s federal medical center for men. Very early tomorrow morning, Buddy Bell, Cassandra Dixon, and Paco and Silver, two house guests whom we first met in protests on South Korea’s Jeju Island, will travel with me to Kentucky and deliver me to the satellite women’s prison outside the Federal Medical Center for men.

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