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Here is the prepared statement Megan Rice read to the court on Tuesday, February 18, 2014:

PART I

As I sat observing the facial expressions of participants present in the hearing on January 28th, I sensed a clear sense of a shared mental reaction during the arguments on this restitution evidentiary Table submitted by the Prosecution (identification…) (display my Exhibit I)

I think we felt something of a Master’s compassionate consternation with the hypocrisy at his accusers.  (Luke 6:5-11  Mark 4:20-30)

I was stunned that 8 months had elapsed with apparently no prior conversations, out of court, between the opposing sides and the court in this case, and would have imagined it had been resolved by negotiation during those delays, and relegated to where it deserved to be disposed. – unworthy of evidence in any court of law.

by Felice and Jack Cohen-Joppa

Nine months after their conviction on charges of sabotage and criminal damage at the Y-12 nuclear weapons plant at Oak Ridge, Tennessee, three nuclear abolitionists were sentenced to lengthy prison terms today, February 18, in federal court in Knoxville, Tennessee.

Federal Court Judge Amul Thapar imposed prison terms less than what federal guidelines recommend and prosecutors asked for: 35 months for Sr. Megan Rice (84 years old), and 62 months for Michael Walli (64 years old) and Greg Boertje-Obed (59 years old), followed by 3 years of supervised release. Divided among them, the three Transform Now Plowshares activists must also pay restitution totaling $52,953.

Photo by Carol Baum

All found guilty of disorderly conduct but acquitted of trespassing; Order of Protection extended 2 years; Judge decides to send a message

[UPDATE:  On February 25, Elliot Adams (the last defendant of the Hancock 17 drone protest group) was taken right to jail from the courtroom.  He was found guilty of disorderly conduct and sentenced to 15 days in jail, a $250 fine and a two year order of protection to stay away from Col Earl A. Evan.]

from the Upstate NY Coalition to Ground the Drones and End the Wars

On Friday, February 7, Town of DeWitt Court Judge David Gideon found twelve of the Hancock Drone War Crimes Resisters guilty of disorderly conduct, but acquitted them of trespassing.They had gone to Hancock Air National Guard Base near Syracuse, NY on October 25, 2012, to bring a Citizens War Crimes Indictment to the base and symbolically block the gates. Their nonviolent action had called for an end to drone warfare.

Leonard Peltier. AP photo.

from the International Leonard Peltier Defense Committee

“… new consideration should be given to clemency for Leonard Peltier.” Professor James Anaya

On Friday January 24, 2014, United Nations Special Rapporteur, Professor James Anaya visited United States Penitentiary Coleman 1 in Florida, to meet with American Indian political prisoner Leonard Peltier. Professor Anaya was accompanied by Leonard “Lenny ” Foster, member of the Board of Directors of the International Indian Treaty Council (IITC), Supervisor of the Navajo Nations Correction Project, and Spiritual Advisor to Mr. Peltier for nearly 30 years.

Greg Boertje-Obed, Sr. Megan Rice and Michael Walli – photo by Ralph Hutchison

from religionandpolitics.org

By David Cook

We are truly human when we act responsibly to restore harmony and act with love and compassion to restore truth, transparency and the equitable distribution of the resources endowed by our common Creator.

This sentence was written in black ink on an 8×12 white sheet of paper from inside the state penitentiary in Ocilla, Georgia, by an 83-year old nun. Her name is Megan Rice. The American government considers her a criminal.

In the early morning on Saturday, July 28, 2012, Rice broke into one of the most secure places in the world: the Y-12 National Security Complex in Oak Ridge, Tennessee. With her, two other Christian peace activists: Michael Walli and Greg Boertje-Obed. Using bolt cutters, they clipped holes in the chain-link fencing, crept past multiple layers—dogs, alarms, watchtowers, armed guards in the kill zone—into the inner chamber of an American nuclear weapons complex, the place that birthed the atomic bomb, the place that continues to birth our nation’s weapons of mass destruction.