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photo by Barry Binks

On January 6, the monthly Catholic Worker vigil at the Livermore nuclear weapons lab in California was joined by members of Tri-Valley CAREs, the local nuclear abolitionist group that keeps a critical eye on activity at Livermore.

The particular focus of the January vigil was to oppose the planned use of plutonium in the National Ignition Facility (NIF), a big-budget science project long trumpeted to advance research on fusion energy. But in December, the lab made a sudden announcement that plutonium experiments would begin at NIF in January, bringing the project back to its stealth roots as an advanced nuclear weapons engineering enterprise.

Photo by Justin Norman

From Ferguson to Guantánamo: White Silence Equals State Violence
Demonstrators Interrupt U.S. Senate; Block D.C. Central Cell Block Entrance

from Witness Against Torture

Witness Against Torture held one action at two locations on January 12 in Washington, D.C. condemning domestic racism and the violation of human rights in the War on Terror.

Inside the United States Senate chamber at 2:30 pm, eleven demonstrators interrupted Senate proceedings to call for prosecutions of those who committed torture, as detailed in the U.S. Senate report on CIA interrogations. Chanting “Torture, It’s Official, Prosecute Now!” the protestors addressed the Senate before being arrested by Capitol Police. In the Senate Visitors Center, another group held banners with such slogans as “Accountability for Police Murder, Accountability for Torture.” Ten were arrested in the Visitors Center.

by Art Laffin

On December 29, over 50 people from the Atlantic and Southern Life Communities held a nonviolent witness at the Pentagon to commemorate the feast of the Massacre of the Holy Innocents (the actual feast was on Sunday, December 28). The noon-time witness began with a procession in which participants carried banners and signs from Army Navy Drive to the designated “protest” area located near the Pentagon south metro entrance. The lead banner, carried by young adults, read: “Peace To All Children of the Earth.”

Upon our arrival we encountered a sizable Pentagon police presence who directed everyone to go into the fenced off designated protest area. Ten did not comply and proceeded farther along the building side of the sidewalk holding a large banner that said “Wage Peace–Practice Nonviolence.” I also held a sign which said “Love Your Neighbor Means Don’t Bomb, Occupy and Kill Them!” At first, it appeared the ten of us would be stopped. But surprisingly, we were able to move farther down the sidewalk so that we could face the rest of the community who were directly across from us behind the fence in the police designated protest area.

from the Support Dr. Shakir Hamoodi Facebook community

Dr. Shakir Hamoodi was released from the Federal Prison Camp in Leavenworth, Kansas this week, and transferred to a halfway house in Columbia, Missouri. He will stay there for an undetermined time, then transfer to house arrest (in his home) until the end of his sentence. Although the halfway house is not ideal, this is one step closer to the time he completes his sentence – a sentence he is serving because he paid for food, medicines, clothing, and shelter for his own poor family members who were suffering under the brutal sanctions on Iraq from 1991-2003.   His final release date is April 7, 2015.

You can read background information here.

DECEMBER 27 UPDATE – Dr. Hamoodi is now under house arrest.  Read more here.