The Nuclear Resister

Photo posted on Twitter by the Daniel Hale Support Network

Daniel Hale was released from federal prison to home confinement in February, more than a decade after his arrest for disclosing documents and speaking publicly about the limits and failures of U.S. drone warfare. An ankle monitor was attached to supervise his location at all times until the completion of his sentence on July 5. 

Following a protracted prosecution for violating the Espionage Act, Hale eventually pled guilty in 2021 to a 45-month sentence. He served most of his time behind bars at the notorious Communications Management Unit (CMU) of the federal prison at Marion, Illinois, where his correspondence, phone calls and visits were limited and closely monitored. Correspondence that had been withheld during his imprisonment at Marion was given to him upon release.

Photo by Michelle Shiloh

JULY 29 UPDATE: Someone anonymously paid Dennis DuVall’s fine and he was released from prison.

On July 22, accompanied by his wife and friends, 82-year-old Dennis DuVall reported to Bautzen prison in Germany. The American citizen, who has lived in Germany for six years, will be serving a 90 day sentence for nonpayment of fines for protest actions at Büchel air base, where U.S. nuclear weapons are stored. The Veterans for Peace member spent 60 days in the same prison in 2023, also for actions at Büchel.

Photo by David Solnit

Click here for the latest update, “10,000 arrests demand CEASEFIRE NOW!”

From the Nuclear Resister

(This chronicle of resistance is published in issues #202 and #203/204 of the Nuclear Resister newsletter, and online at nukeresister.org. Last updated on July 11.)

Since October of 2023, thousands of protests and 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 9,000 arrests (and counting) in the U.S. and Canada on over 350 occasions across more than 125 cities and towns in 36 states and 5 provinces. Over 3,400 of these arrests have taken place on at least 70 university campuses. 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.

Susan van der Hijden, Susan Crane and Gerd Büntzly at Rohrbach prison on June 4 (Peace Walk Büchel 2024 photo)

JULY 30 UPDATE: Susan Crane and Susan van der Hijden are now serving their time at an open (lower security) prison in Koblenz. You can write to them individually at JVA Koblenz – Offener Vollzug, Simmerner Str. 14a, 56075 Koblenz, Germany.

You can read their prison reflections here and here.

from Nukewatch

On Tuesday, June 4, the first ever female U.S. peace activist sentenced to prison in Germany in the 25-year-long campaign demanding the withdrawal of the U.S. nuclear weapons stationed at Germany’s Büchel Air Force base, began her sentence of 229 days, the longest ever imposed in the campaign.

Susan Crane, 80, from Redwood City, California, along with Dutch citizen Susan van der Hijden from Amsterdam, both began serving “substitute” sentences Tuesday  — for nonpayment of financial penalties — at the Wöllstein-Rohrbach prison in Rhineland-Palatinate. Susan van der Hijden was given a 115 day sentence, resulting from Büchel actions in 2018 and 2019.

Crane was convicted September 20, 2021 in Koblenz Regional Court in Germany on six counts of trespass stemming from repeated protests against the nuclear weapons “forward deployed” by the United States at Büchel, 80 miles southeast of Cologne.