Author Archive for Jack & Felice

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.

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.

The 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.