Helen Dery Woodson, Presente! » Read more…
April 24 blockade of the West Gate at Holloman Air Force Base
Six activists were arrested while blocking the main gate to Holloman Air Force Base on the morning of April 24 in a protest against the use of killer military drones. Denise Sellers (San Diego, CA), John Reese (High Rolls/Mtn. Park, NM), Natasha Robinson (Berkeley, CA), Toby Blomé (El Cerrito, CA), Virginia Hauflaire (Phoenix, AZ) and Ray Cage (Tucson, AZ) were released that afternoon after being arraigned.
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Photo by John LaForge of Jane Stoever & Scot Bohl placing crime scene tape on earth moving machines at H-bomb factory expansion site.
50 resist nuclear bomb production in KC; 10 arrested
by Jane Stoever
With workers streaming into the Kansas City Nuclear Security Campus (NSC)—not a campus but a giant factory making parts for nuclear weapons—50 Catholic Workers and friends took action to try to stop production of nuclear weapon parts at the NSC. And—oh, yes—we protested the building of new structures to make the so-called campus twice its size.
Three persons put “crime scene—do not enter” tape on a huge dump truck on the field the NSC needs flattened for the new building to make new nukes. Workmen told us, “We’re just moving dirt,” an amazing disconnect between their labor and the factory to come that will do mechanical/electronic work for US nuclear bombs.
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Beth Blattenberger
from the Nevada Desert Experience
Nuclear weapons abolition and the liberation of the Western Shoshone Homeland were in the hearts and minds of the Sacred Peace Walkers as they concluded their pilgrimage from Las Vegas to the Nevada National Security Site in Mercury, Nevada on Good Friday, March 29. The spirit of Aaron Bushnell and the deadly fires and incineration of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were felt deeply as our souls cried out for a cease fire and an end to the genocide in Palestine along with atonement for the egregious offenses in Ukraine and other parts of the world, past and present.
As the pilgrimage approached the line, Beth Blattenberger, of Salt Lake City, Utah, quietly continued walking across the line and was arrested for trespass.
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from Ariel Gold, Fellowship of Reconciliation-USA Executive Director
Yesterday, Susan, Rev. Fahed Abuakel, I, and others finished walking 20 miles (about the length of Gaza) from the Liberty Bell in Philadelphia to Lockheed Martin. Gathered with families and children too young to yet comprehend the horrors of war, twenty-five of us crossed onto the property of the largest weapons manufacturer in the world.
Some lay down holding a list of the over 13,000 children who have been killed since October 7, 2023. Others held a banner reading, “Lockheed Martin, you have blood on your hands.” I was the first to be taken into police custody.
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Photo by Dan Moriarty
by Art Laffin
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Sylver Pondolfino
On the morning of March 27, during an anti-drone protest, 89-year-old retired pastor George Killingsworth of Berkeley, California was arrested for drawing a peace sign with chalk on a large boulder near the gate of Creech Air Force Base in Indian Springs, Nevada. He was charged with defacing public property and released outside the base.
Karen Pettit of Las Vegas, Nevada and Sylver Pondolfino of Staten Island, New York were also arrested while blocking traffic at the drone base. They were taken to the Clark County Jail in Las Vegas, charged with failure to disperse and later released. Prior to their arrests, a driver wearing a USAF flight suit lurched forward with her vehicle and made contact with Karen. No injuries resulted.
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On March 13, Ray Towey marked the Ministry of Defence in London, as a witness against the nuclear war preparations of the U.K. government.
Ray was supported by Carmel and Dan Martin.
As usual, we started in the nearby park with prayers and readings from the Bible and “Follow Me – The Way of the Cross”, with reflections taken from the writings of Blessed Franz Jagerstatter (pub Pax Christi). Prepared and led by Carmel, see below.
The police arrived after Ray had written several messages along with the sign of the cross under the MoD plaque:
“Trident is Genocide”
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Jim Haber (photo by Felice Cohen-Joppa)
by Felice Cohen-Joppa
Members of the Pacific Life Community converged outside of Las Vegas from March 16 – 18 for their annual gathering to protest nuclear weapons. Two of them were arrested on Monday morning, March 18 during a nonviolent action at the Nevada nuclear test site.
Before Rush Rehm and Jim Haber crossed the line onto the site, 40 people gathered for a ceremony in the desert outside of the boundary fence of the Nevada National Security Site (NNSS). They placed a plaque honoring the life of Fr. Louis Vitale, OFM under a creosote bush. Vitale was a co-founder of the Nevada Desert Experience in the early 1980s, who often protested and was arrested at the Nevada test site over the years. The activists then joined hands in a circle to take part in the Elm Dance, which “celebrates commitment to life and solidarity with activists the world over”.
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Nukewatch photo
from Nukewatch
First Ever U.S. Woman Sentenced to Prison in Decades-Long Effort
Susan Crane, of the Redwood City, California Catholic Worker, has been sentenced to 229 days in prison in Germany for daring to interfere with the U.S. nuclear weapons stationed at Germany’s Büchel Air Force base, southeast of Cologne.
Crane participated in six nonviolent go-in actions, confronting the air force system on base which routinely trains to drop the U.S. H-bombs on targets in Russia,[1] most provocatively this winter in operation “Steadfast Defender 24” — which was launched in the midst of NATO’s war in Ukraine.[2]
As a result of convictions on misdemeanor charges of trespass and damage to the chain-link fence, Crane was fined a total of twenty-five-hundred Euros. Now, for refusing to admit guilt or pay, a mid-level court on Jan. 18, 2024 ordered Crane to report June 4, 2024 to Rohrbach penitentiary, a 450-bed, co-ed in southwest Germany. Crane’s 7.6- month penalty is the longest prison sentence ever imposed in the 25-year-long series of rallies, protests, marches, peace camps, and civil resistance directed at the NATO nuclear weapons base. Crane is also the first U.S. woman to be ordered to German prison in the decades-long effort.
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