Georgina Smith, 81, Jailed 45 Days for Graffiti at Scotland’s High Court

Posted on January 26, 2011

Graffiti at the High Court, Remembrance Day, 2006

Georgina Smith and Helen John painted “Genocide”, “NO More War Crimes”, “No Upgrade”, “Respect the War Dead”, and “Art, Law, Morality” on the walls outside of the High Court on Edinburgh’s Royal Mile on Remembrance Day 2006. The action was a protest against the High Court’s complicity in the illegal deployment of the genocidal nuclear weapon system by ruling it legal in the Lord Advocates Reference of 2000. In addition their action condemned the Scottish legal system for holding people who blockaded during Faslane365 for up to thirty hours before releasing them without charge.

Georgina is a veteran anti-nuclear campaigner who took part in the decade long women’s encampment at Greenham Common which ultimately ended when US Cruise missiles were removed. The painting was part of the year-long Faslane365 campaign

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Nonviolent resistance at Lockheed Martin on Martin Luther King Day

Posted on January 21, 2011

Annie Geers is taken into custody. Photo by Melissa K. Elliott

Nearly seventy-five people gathered in front of  Lockheed Martin’s Valley Forge, Pennsylvania complex in King of Prussia, Pennsylvania on January 17, the federal holiday observance of Martin Luther King, Jr. Day.

A half block long line of people, holding banners and signs and standing next to large self-standing pictures of Dr. King, chanted “the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice”, heard Jane Dugdale of Main Line Peace Action speak about the military budget, and listened to the extended audio broadcast of excerpts of sermons and speeches of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.  A bell tolled after a Litany of the King Day Memorial (see below) as eight people, prepared to be arrested in civil disobedience, walked into the crossing of the Lockheed Martin main driveway.

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Chris Cole jailed for 30 days for London arms sale protest

Posted on January 19, 2011

Chris Cole

Chris Cole was jailed for 30 days on January 19 for non-payment of a fine relating to a protest at the DSEI arms fair in 2009.  With statutory credit, he was released from prison on February 2.  His pre-prison reflections follow.

It’s Just the Way Things Are by Chris Cole

January 18, 2011

In 2009 the Defence & Security Equipment International (DSEI) exhibition was due to hold its bi-annual arms selling jamboree in East London, opening with a conference at the Queen Elizabeth Conference centre in central London. According to its official brochure, the aim of the ‘UK Defence Conference 2009 ’ was to bring together “senior officials from the arms industry, the military and the UK government” to “explore the business opportunities” to be found  in “global security threats such as climate change, major population movements, growing water scarcity, competition for energy sources and the continued rise of Islamism.”  Here then, was another opportunity to confront the UK’s military-industrial complex as it gathered together at the beginning of their week-long arms spree.

So with spray can in hand I went to the conference centre just before the event and sprayed ‘build peace not war machines’, ‘stop this bloody business’ and ‘arms trade=death’ on the front entrance and poured fake blood over the steps.    (See CCTV footage  here).  I was shortly convicted of criminal damage and fined just under £2,000. Eighteen months (and numerous court letters, bailiffs threats and visits) later it’s time to go back to court to explain my actions and why I won’t pay the fine.

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Support grows for Manning; Confinement conditions protested

Posted on January 18, 2011

from Courage to Resist, www.couragetoresist.org

Bradley Manning standwithbrad.org

Act to end the inhumane treatment of Bradley Manning

Your help is needed in pressing the following demands: End the inhumane, degrading conditions of pre-trial confinement and respect Bradley’s human rights. Specifically, lift the “Prevention of Injury (POI) watch order”. This would allow Bradley meaningful physical exercise, uninterrupted sleep during the night, and a release from isolation. We are not asking for “special treatment”. In fact, we are demanding an immediate end to the special treatment.

Quantico Base Commander; Colonel Daniel Choike; 3250 Catlin Avenue, Quantico VA 22134; +1-703-432-0289 (Media Officer phone)
Quantico Brig Commanding Officer; CWO4 James Averhart; 3247 Elrod Avenue, Quantico VA 22134

THIS JUST IN:  Two hundred supporters protested outside of the Quantico, Virginia brig on January 17, 2011, in order to rally in support of Bradley Manning and oppose the inhumane conditions of his pre-trial confinement.

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Nuclear resisters arrested at Bangor sub base honoring Martin Luther King Jr’s Birthday

Posted on January 17, 2011

Poulsbo, Washington, Saturday, January 15, 2011 – The Seattle Raging Grannies set the mood for honoring Martin Luther King, Jr’s birthday Saturday at the Ground Zero Center for Nonviolent Action in Poulsbo, Washington.

Blockade at Sub Base Bangor/Kitsap. Photo by Leonard Eiger.

Eighty three people from the Center participated in a vigil at the Kitsap Mall in Silverdale with the help of a full scale, 44 foot long, inflatable Trident D-5 missile. Each D-5 missile, deployed on Trident nuclear submarines, carries up to 8 warheads, each with an explosive yield of up to 475 kilotons. Each D-5 missile costs approximately $60 million.

Participants carried signs and banners calling for an end to war and nuclear weapons. Notable was a quote by Dr. King: “When scientific power outruns moral power, we end up with guided missiles and misguided men.”

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Three arrested at Davis-Monthan AFB during Tucson anti-war protest honoring Dr. King’s birthday

Posted on January 17, 2011

Civilians John Heid, Jean Boucher and Dennis DuVall converse with military police. Photo by Bob Carney.

Following Tucson’s annual Martin Luther King, Jr. Day march on Monday, January 17, 10 people carried Dr. King’s message to nearby Davis–Monthan Air Force Base for a peace vigil to honor his legacy twenty years after the United States began its war against Iraq.

Three men – Dennis DuVall, John Heid, and Jean Boucher – walked into the base with messages for base personnel opposing depleted uranium munitions and armed drones.

They were stopped at the gate by military police who repeatedly asked the men to turn around and leave. When each of them declined, Tucson police were summoned.  Duvall, Heid, and Boucher were arrested, taken into custody, and later released on their own recognizance from the Pima County Jail.  They have March court dates.

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Letters Needed: Demand Peltier’s Immediate Transfer to the Mayo Clinic

Posted on January 11, 2011

Leonard Peltier. AP photo.

UPDATE January 12, from the LPDOC:

Greetings, Supporters.
Thank you so much for taking immediate action on Leonard’s behalf.  The prison authorities have received the message.  Please stop contacting the prison at Lewisburg now.  Instead, redirect all efforts with regard to Leonard’s health concerns to the White House.  Call the White House comment line at 202-456-1111.

(Note from the editors:  we have removed the prison contact details originally posted below)

From the Leonard Peltier Defense Offense Committee:

The Leonard Peltier Defense Offense Committee urgently calls upon all supporters to consistently and constantly contact USP Lewisburg to demand Leonard Peltier be immediately transferred to the Mayo Clinic for a full medical evaluation and appropriate treatment. As many of you know, Leonard has exhibited symptoms of prostate cancer for over a year.  After months of pressure by attorneys, Leonard underwent blood tests in June of 2010. Those results were not made available until early November 2010. A biopsy was indicated which was ordered by a physician and approved by the prison.  However, the biopsy has not been performed.  The delay in testing, diagnosis, and treatment is unacceptable and constitutes medical neglect.

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Justice Denied: Activists Imprisoned, SOA Remains Open

Posted on January 6, 2011

Federal Judge sentences SOA Watch activists to six months in prison

from School of the Americas Watch

Chris Spicer and Nancy Smith.

Once again, the justice system’s complicity with the abuses taught at the School of the Americas was exposed on January 5 at the trial of anti-militarization activists Nancy Smith and Chris Spicer. Nancy, from New York, changed her plea to no contest and was immediately sentenced to 6 months in prison by Magistrate Judge Stephen Hyles. In the SOA Watch tradition of using the court to put a spotlight on the SOA/WHINSEC, Nancy affirmed that she “felt a strong moral imperative” to carry out her nonviolent act of civil disobedience “on behalf of those who have suffered so terribly”.

Chris, from Illinois, plead not guilty but was declared guilty by Judge Hyles and sentenced likewise to 6 months. In his closing statement before sentencing, Chris addressed the ongoing human rights abuses in Latin America carried out by graduates of the School of the Americas, and his need to confront the “paralysis of fear” that has gripped the country in recent times.

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Failure to obey a lawful order

Posted on January 2, 2011

Published on Wednesday, December 29, 2010 by CommonDreams.org

by Leah Bolger

Imagine you are taking a walk in a park and you witness a mugging.  What would you do?  Would you look the other way or would you try to stop it?   If you are one who would try to stop it, then what would you do when it is your government that is committing the crime?  As citizens we are told that we should call our Congressman or write a letter to the editor when we are dissatisfied with our government.  But writing a letter to the editor is no more effective at stopping the crimes of our government than it is at stopping a mugging.

On December 16th, 2010, I participated in an act of civil resistance in an attempt to stop my government from continuing to commit crimes—namely the ongoing wars of aggression in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan.  In the middle of a heavy snowstorm, I was arrested along with 130 other people in front of the White House who refused to move off the sidewalk when ordered to by the police.  We were not violent, we carried no weapons, and we damaged no property.  We were, however, willing to disobey the police as an act of resistance to our government; as a way of saying “No” to the senseless slaughter of innocent people; “No” to outrageous war profiteering, “No” to our government’s flagrant disregard of international law, ”No” to the squandering of hundreds of billions of dollars.  

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Shut It Down rings in New Year with solar for Vermont

Posted on January 1, 2011

Martha Hennessy and Paki Wieland

VERNON, Vermont — Ringing in the new year Saturday (January 1) by bringing solar panels to replace nuclear energy at Entergy’s Vermont Yankee nuclear power plant here, nine women of the Shut It Down Affinity Group faced charges of unlawful trespass when town and state police arrested them just before two in the afternoon for blocking Entergy’s driveway.

Police booked the women and released them pending a February 28 court appearance in Windham County District Court in Brattleboro. It was Shut It Down’s eleventh witness against nuclear power at Vermont Yankee since the women began appearing there in December, 2005. Despite the women’s repeated insistence that they would appreciate follow-through on a court date, the state’s attorney has dropped all previous charges.

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