May 2015 IN THIS E-BULLETIN SABOTAGE CONVICTION OVERTURNED; SR. MEGAN, MICHAEL AND GREG RELEASED FROM PRISON! FIVE NUCLEAR ABOLITIONISTS ARRESTED AT MOTHER’S DAY ACTION AT TRIDENT SUB BASE MOTHER’S DAY ACTION AT PILGRIM NUCLEAR POWER PLANT; TWO ARRESTED PLEASE SUPPORT IMPRISONED ANTI-NUCLEAR AND ANTI-WAR ACTIVISTS – THE NUCLEAR RESISTER NEEDS YOU! Sabotage conviction overturned; […]
Monthly Archive for May, 2015
Cape Downwinders amped up their campaign to shut down the aging Pilgrim nuclear power plant with a Mad As Hell Mother’s Day Rumble on May 10. “Bring food, noisemakers and all your frustrations – We will make racket” announced the flyer for the event, which began with a picnic and rally at White Horse Beach on the western shore of Cape Cod Bay, next to the 42-year-old reactor. There was song, drumming, three original poems about Pilgrim by Cape resident Marge Piercy, and an update on the shut-down effort in the wake of two reactor shutdowns last winter due to storm threats and damage, including one emergency scram.
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The years since I was jailed for releasing the ‘war diaries’ have been a rollercoaster from The Guardian by Chelsea Manning May 27, 2015 Today marks five years since I was ordered into military confinement while deployed to Iraq in 2010. I find it difficult to believe, at times, just how long I have been […]
On his last day alive, April 4, 1968, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. sent the title of his upcoming Sunday sermon to his church in Atlanta: “Why America May Go to Hell.” He had earlier said that “A nation that continues, year after year, to spend more money on military defense than on programs of […]
The Catholic nun and two military veterans & Catholic Workers spent 2 years in prison for their 2012 Transform Now Plowshares direct disarmament action at the Y-12 nuclear weapons complex in Tennessee. Sr. Megan Rice was due out in November, 2015; Greg Boertje-Obed and Michael Walli were due out in fall, 2017. But their lawyers appealed their sabotage conviction… and it was overturned! Today (May 16) all three were released from prison!!! Their message – and the work – continues: DISARM NUCLEAR WEAPONS!
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Attorney Bill Quigley with Greg, Sr. Megan and Michael at May 2013 trial
This news just in from an attorney for the defendants, Bill Quigley:
“Sixth circuit just ruled. Defendants are to be released on their own recognizance. Immediately.”
Details to follow, including confirmation of their release from prison!
From the Transform Now Plowshares website
Sixth circuit orders immediate release of Michael, Megan and Greg
In an amazing turn of events, the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals this evening ordered the immediate release of Megan Rice, Michael Walli and Greg Boertje-Obed, the Transform Now Plowshares activists who were serving time in federal prison for their action at the Y12 Nuclear Weapons Complex in Oak Ridge, TN to protest plans for a new multibillion dollar nuclear bomb plant there.
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photo by Leonard Eiger
by Leonard Eiger, Ground Zero Center for Nonviolent Action
Activists Make Statement at Nuke Base: Our Children Deserve Better!
Activists briefly blockaded the entrance to a West Coast nuclear weapons base in a statement against U.S. Nuclear modernization efforts on the eve of Mothers Day.
On Saturday, May 9, anti-nuclear weapons activists gathered at the main entrance gate to Naval Base Kitsap-Bangor, Silverdale, Washington, home to eight of the nation’s fourteen OHIO Class (Trident) ballistic missile submarines. Carrying signs saying “Our children deserve better”, five protesters walked into the roadway and blocked traffic entering the base. Washington State Patrol officers moved in and escorted the protesters off the roadway.
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photo by Ralph Hutchison
A three-judge panel of the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals has overturned the sabotage convictions of Megan Rice, Michael Walli and Greg Boertje-Obed, the Transform Now Plowshares nuclear disarmament activists who were arrested inside the Y-12 nuclear weapons complex at Oak Ridge, Tennessee on July 28, 2012. They were convicted in May, 2013 of sabotage and depredation of government property for cutting through four fences to reach an enriched uranium storage fortress where, the panel notes, “the trio spray-painted antiwar slogans, hung crime tape and banners with biblical phrases, splashed blood, and sang hymns.”
In its 2-1 decision, the panel found the three lacked the requisite intent of an accused saboteur to “injure the national defense”, because their actions, while damaging property and motivated by a desire for disarmament, did not functionally affect the nation’s ability to initiate or defend attacks.
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April 2015 IN THIS E-BULLETIN NUCLEAR ABOLITIONISTS BLOCK DOORS TO THE U.S. MISSION TO THE U.N., 22 ARRESTED SIXTEEN ARRESTED STOPPING TRAFFIC AT BUSY MAIN GATE OF CALIFORNIA DRONE BASE MAN ARRESTED FOR LANDING NUCLEAR PROTEST DRONE ON JAPAN PRIME MINISTER’S RESIDENCE CLIMATE ACTIVISTS ARRESTED ON EARTH DAY AT PENTAGON FASLANE NUCLEAR WEAPONS BASE […]