Monthly Archive for May, 2014

by Kathy Kelly

[Followed by an article by Dr. Hakim]

May 24, 2014

Jeju Island, South Korea – For the past two weeks, I’ve been in the Republic of Korea (ROK), as a guest of peace activists living in Gangjeong Village on ROK’s Jeju Island. Gangjeong is one of the ROK’s smallest villages, yet activists here, in their struggle against the construction of a massive naval base, have inspired people around the world.

Since 2007, activists have risked arrests, imprisonment, heavy fines and wildly excessive use of police force to resist the desecration caused as mega-corporations like Samsung and Daelim build a base to accommodate U.S. nuclear-powered aircraft carriers and submarines for their missions throughout Asia. The base fits the regional needs of the U.S. for a maritime military outpost that would enable it to continue developing its Asia Pivot strategy, gradually building towards and in the process provoking superpower conflict with China.

from SOA Watch

Last week, Washington, DC activists helped kick off SOA Watch’s poster campaign to remember the martyrs and expose the killers. On Wednesday, May 14, a group of about a dozen activists came together to paste up a giant mural on the streets of the Adams Morgan neighborhood of Washington, DC.

Though the activists were peaceful in their actions, DC police decided that political art was unacceptable in the district. After the artwork was completed, four of the activists were handcuffed, arrested and held for 6 hours before being charged with “defacing public or private property.” The charge carries a maximum penalty of 6 months in prison and a $1,000 fine. SOA Watch activists Dominique Diaddigo-Cash, Gail Taylor, Maria Luisa Rosal and Nico Udu-gama will be arraigned in US Superior Court on June 5, 2014. The best way to stand in solidarity with the targeted activists, and to push back against the criminalization of dissent, is to keep up the resistance!

World without War photo

from Jeewoo Yeo

Yeo-ok Yang and Jungmin Choi (activists with World Without War) and Reverend Bora Im (of Hyanglin Church) were put into prison on May 20.

They were sentenced to pay a fine of two million won each (approximately 2,000 USD) for taking a direct action to block the construction of Jeju Naval Base, which had been illegally undertaken without an agreement with local residents.

Instead of paying the fine, they chose to be imprisoned in a workhouse. Two million won is a large amount money for an activist. But that is not the main reason of their choices. They thought it is a violation of the constitutional rights to the freedom of assembly and association to impose heavy fines on activists taking a thoroughly nonviolent way of resistance against wrongful state policies.

Photo by Leonard Eiger, Ground Zero Center for Nonviolent Action

by Leonard Eiger, Ground Zero Center for Nonviolent Action

Silverdale, Washington, May 10, 2014: Activists from Ground Zero Center for Nonviolent Action, in Poulsbo, Washington staged a tea party at the main gate of Naval Base Kitsap-Bangor, the West Coast home port for the U.S. nuclear ballistic missile submarine fleet.

Protesters walked onto the roadway in successive waves, briefly blocking the entrance, and offered tea and cookies to the Washington State Patrol officers standing in the median. Officers escorted them from the roadway and cited them for walking on the roadway where prohibited.