From Morgantown FCI, by Steve Baggarly
Posted on December 8, 2011
The one thing which every jail and prison does more than anything else is counting people. We’re counted five times a day here. Three times we’re returned to our housing units to stand by our bunks and be counted, and they come through twice at night after lights out. We’re counted to the extent that [...]
» Read moreFrom the Irwin County Detention Center, by Steve Baggarly
Posted on September 5, 2011
Reprinted from the Catholic Agitator, newsletter of the Los Angeles Catholic Worker. Steve Baggarly will be sentenced September 20 in federal court in Knoxville, Tennessee, for trespass July 5, 2010 at the Y-12 nuclear weapons complex in Oak Ridge, Tennessee. Last night as I prepared to turn in, at the foot of my upper bunk, [...]
» Read moreFrom FMC Carswell, Max Unit, by Helen Woodson
Posted on September 5, 2011
Silo Pruning Hook activist Helen Woodson is due to be released September 9 after serving nearly 27 years in prison for that and subsequent actions against war and other assaults on human dignity, peace and the environment. July 23, 2011 Dear Jack & Felice, 48 days – and then I’ll emerge, Winkle-esque, into a very [...]
» Read moreJackie Hudson, Presente
Posted on August 15, 2011
TRIBUTE TO JACKIE HUDSON, OP from her sisters in prison Sister Jackie Hudson, OP – Dominican Sister of Grand Rapids, Michigan, missioned to Ground Zero near Bangor Trident Naval Base, faith-filled and faithful peacemaker and organizer, strong preacher of truth, gentle and nonviolent woman, teacher, musician, plowshare activist and resister, was called before her unconditionally [...]
» Read moreFrom the Irwin County Detention Center, by Sr. Mary Dennis Lentsch
Posted on July 24, 2011
July 8, 2011 Dear Peacemaking Friends, With all the prayers and positive energy coming to me from so many directions, I feel I’m doing very well here at the Ocilla jail. This letter is being written to LaQuita with what the commissary calls a “ballpoint pen”. It is the skinny little filler for a pen so [...]
» Read moreFrom the Irwin County Detention Center, by Michael Walli
Posted on July 1, 2011
A JOKE AND A LETTER The U.S. and Russia are supposedly allies in fighting Islamic terrorism. But they do not trust one another – they spy upon one another. The U.S. Navy Seals used trained porpoises to spy upon the Russian Navy in their naval warfare activities. But the Russian sailors kidnapped the porpoises. This [...]
» Read moreFrom FCI Dublin, by Susan Crane
Posted on June 19, 2011
Thank you for your letters, your prayers, the books you have sent. Thanks for maintaining contact with me. I arrived at the federal prison here in California, flown in with 29 other women from Pahrump, Nevada. We had been woken up at midnight to get ready to leave, and had been in shackles and waistchain [...]
» Read moreFrom the Irwin County Detention Center, Georgia, by Bonnie Urfer
Posted on June 18, 2011
TOILET PAPER by Bonnie Urfer I really want to complain about every woman in this jail receiving one roll of toilet paper to last for the whole week but I can’t because the for profit jail almost killed my friend Jackie in it’s “medical” unit. I really want to complain about the lack of toilet [...]
» Read moreFrom the Blount County Correctional Facility, TN, by Carol Gilbert, O.P.
Posted on June 6, 2011
May 25, 2011 Dear Friends, Welcome to another of America’s gulags – this one in Eastern TN – the Blount County Correctional Facility in Maryville, TN! This is day number 15 and I want to begin the journey with a quote from Jarhead by Anthony Swofford and his experiences as a Marine in Operation Desert [...]
» Read more~ from Tacoma, Washington, by Lynne Greenwald
Posted on April 29, 2011
FDC SeaTac by Lynne Greenwald Concrete walls and locked doors cannot take away images of bright lights, fences and towers protecting tombs of unimaginable horrors. We remember fertile lands, natural forests, mollusk-rich beaches, early morning fog clinging to water and earth until the sun brightens the sky, exposing Olympian mountains. Trident IS Illegal and Immoral. [...]
» Read moreA letter from Bix (written several days before beginning “diesel therapy” to Tennessee)
Posted on April 19, 2011
After spending the first 2 1/2 weeks of his prison sentence for the Disarm Now Plowshares action at the SeaTac Federal Correction Facility, Jesuit priest Bill “Bix” Bichsel was taken out of his cell on April 18. He is being transported several thousand miles across the U.S. to Tennessee, where he is scheduled to join [...]
» Read more~ from Lompoc, California, by Louis Vitale
Posted on March 24, 2011
Responding to the Message of Fukashima By Louie Vitale In “From Hiroshima to Fukushima,” an article published in The Nation on March 15 in the wake of the nuclear power disaster in Japan, historian Jonathan Schell once again hit the mark. The author of the ground-breaking book The Fate of the Earth published in the [...]
» Read moreFrom Fr. Louis Vitale, written at the Irwin County Detention Center, Georgia
Posted on December 20, 2010
December 8, 2010 HERE WE ARE AGAIN by Fr. Louis Vitale Two weeks have passed since David Omondi and I began our sojourn here at Irwin County Detention Center in southern Georgia. Some may say, “Vitale has protested himself back into the pokey below the Mason-Dixon line” and “He has been jailed again in an [...]
» Read more~ from Danville, Connecticut, by Nancy Gwin
Posted on September 29, 2010
Illegal Reentry by Nancy Gwin I. In January I was found guilty in Federal Court in Columbus, Georgia of “Illegal Reentry onto a United States Military Reservation.” I have been incarcerated here at Danbury Federal Correctional Institution since March 8. The illegal reentry occurred last November when Fr. Louis Vitale, Ken Hayes, Michael Walli and [...]
» Read more~ from Lewisburg, Pennsylvania, by Leonard Peltier
Posted on September 29, 2010
(from the Nuclear Resister #158/159, September 20, 2010) February 6, 2010 Greetings to everyone, Thirty-four years. It doesn’t even sound like a real number to me. Not when one really thinks about being in a jail cell for that long. All these years and I swear, I still think sometimes I’ll wake up from this [...]
» Read more~ from Skenäs Prison, Sweden, by Martin Smedjeback
Posted on August 2, 2010
SERVING TIME FOR PEACE IN SWEDEN 17th of June, 2010 I am led into the central office of the prison Skenäs outside of Norrköping. Two guards help me to carry my stuff. “It looks like you are moving in here!” says one guard. “That’s exactly what I am doing, temporary anyway,” says I. “Do you [...]
» Read more~ from Lompoc, California, by Fr. Louie Vitale, OFM
Posted on June 5, 2010
(From the Nuclear Resister #157, June 1, 2010) February 25, 2010 How Can I Cope? Many people who write me – friends and supporters – ask about harsh treatment and brutality. I do not deny that in many prisons and jails these conditions do exist. One can even raise the charge of torture. In regards [...]
» Read more~ from Vikbolandet, Sweden, by Martin Smedjeback
Posted on April 1, 2010
(From the Nuclear Resister #154, July 17, 2009) Strategy Behind Swedish Disarmament The network Ofog (meaning mischief in Swedish) started in 2002 as an anti-militarist network for a nuclear-free world. Inspired by the Trident Ploughshares campaign in Great Britain, we used mainly blockades in our actions but also other forms of direct action, like penetrating [...]
» Read more~ from Pekin, Illinois, by Kristin Holm
Posted on April 1, 2010
(From the Nuclear Resister #153, May 1, 2009, via lettersfromprison.com) March 22, 2009 (in the afternoon) I got my first visit yesterday – mom and dad. When I found out they were coming I was pleased, but markedly unemotional. It would be good to see them – I like my parents. But it was to [...]
» Read more~ from Norrköpping, Sweden by Annike Spalde
Posted on April 1, 2010
April 4, 2009 Ten years ago I was in jail in England, awaiting trial for an action within the Trident Ploughshares campaign. Now I’m on remand in Sweden, for a disarmament action against the fighter jet Gripen. It’s my first time locked up in Sweden. Compared with in England, one spends more time in the [...]
» Read more~ from Lewisburg, Pennsylvania, by Leonard Peltier
Posted on April 1, 2010
(From the Nuclear Resister #152, February 24, 2009) February 6, 2009 Greetings my relatives, First of all, before anything else I want to thank all for the work that you’ve been doing because what you do for me, you do it for my people and all those that come after us. The enemy that we [...]
» Read more~ from Terre Haute, Indiana, by Rafil Dhafir
Posted on April 1, 2010
(From the Nuclear Resister #151, December 20, 2008) December 16, 2008 Two days ago, December 14, was my second anniversary here in CMU-Terre Haute, Indiana. Two years ago, with dozens of others, I was whisked here without explanation, to this place reserved for those on death row. The place was closed for years. It was [...]
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