Photo by Cristiane Danowski

from Nukewatch

U.S. Activist Ends 7.5-Month Prison Term in Germany;

Jailed for Protests Against U.S. “Nuclear Sharing”

by John LaForge

Susan Crane of Redwood City, California was released from prison in Koblenz, Germany on Friday, January 17, 2025, after spending 7.5 months incarcerated for trespass convictions and refusing to pay fines stemming from a string of nonviolent protests against U.S. nuclear weapons stationed at the Büchel air force base, southeast of Cologne.

On June 4, 2024, Crane began serving a 230-day sentence at the Wöllstein-Rohrbach prison in Rhineland-Palatinate, the longest term yet imposed in the decades-long campaign of protests against the American-made free-fall, gravity bombs known as B61s at the base. Dutch peace activist Susan van der Hijden from Amsterdam served 115-days along with Crane for similar convictions. After ten days at Wöllstein, the two were transferred to the Offener Vollzug or the “open prison” in Koblenz, a less severe system that permits daytime work release. Crane was welcomed by the Martin Luther Evangelical Church community of Koblenz and did light work around the church grounds for many weeks.

From the Nuclear Resister

(This chronicle of resistance was originally published in issues #202, #203/204 and #205 of the Nuclear Resister newsletter. This online version includes available updates and corrections, and was last updated on November 19, 2024.)

Since October of 2023, thousands of protests and direct actions around the world have called for a ceasefire and end to Israel’s occupation of the West Bank and Gaza. In this day-by-day record of dissent, the Nuclear Resister has chronicled more than 10,000 arrests (and counting) in the U.S. and Canada on over 425 occasions across more than 140 cities and towns in 37 states and 5 provinces. More than one third of those have occurred on the campus of at least 70 colleges and universities. It marks the largest surge of anti-war arrests since mid-April, 2003, when the Nuclear Resister reported over 7,500 anti-war arrests in the U.S. alone in the lead-up to and first weeks of the second U.S. invasion of Iraq.

Photo by Mary Gleysteen

Sue Ablao, Mack Johnson, Gilberto Perez, Michael Firefly Siptroth and Caroline Wildflower appeared before Judge Pro Tem Kyle A. Joyce in Kitsap Country Traffic Court August 13, 2024, seeking mitigation of “pedestrian in the roadway” citations and fines for blocking traffic to the Trident Submarine Base on Mother’s Day, May 12. (Carolee Flaten was out of town and sought mitigation by mail.)