Arrested developments

A series of emails have come in this week from Fellowship of Reconciliation members across the country regarding various court trials of peace activists. Here follow three examples. First, this Monday, 11 nonviolent activists were sentenced in Georgia for their role in "crossing the line" at the School of the Americas protest last November. Le Anne Clausen -- a member of FOR's December 2007 peace delegation to Iran, and the director of Seminary Action based in Chicago -- was sentenced to 30 days in jail for her participation in the SOA action.

One of her fellow arrestees, Diane Lopez-Hughes, said on Monday, "I crossed the line at WHINSEC [the official name for SOA is the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation] and prayed on the grounds to bring attention to the teaching of torture and assassination. When enough people learn the truth about this school and act to end these practices, the healing can begin."

SOA Watch encourages you to contact your member of Congress and ask them to cosponsor HR-1707, legislation that would suspend operations at the SOA/WHINSEC and investigate the use of torture manuals and the association of human rights abusers with the school.

Second, last week, John Dear, SJ -- FOR's executive director from 1996-2000, and someone who has crossed the SOA line at Fort Benning and many other military sites -- was sentenced for his role in an action with 10 others where they occupied a government elevator and read the names of U.S. and Iraqi war dead.

In his "My day in court" column this week in the National Catholic Reporter, Dear writes:

I'm always amazed that Jesus did not spend his life sitting under a tree, dispensing his wisdom. He stood up, spoke out, and marched to Jerusalem, where he confronted the culture of injustice, the empire and its religious backers, and suffered the consequences of his civilly disobedient, nonviolent action. His life was disrupted, wrecked, shattered.

"Nonviolence means courage of the highest order and therefore readiness to suffer," Gandhi wrote. "Let those who believe in nonviolence as the only method of achieving real freedom, keep the lamp of nonviolence burning bright in the midst of the present impenetrable gloom. The truth of a few will count, the untruth of millions will vanish even like chaff before a whiff of wind."

Please visit the NCR website to read the rest of his piece -- John was sentenced to six months of supervised probation (where he is ordered to remain within New Mexico), 40 hours of community service, and a $510 fine, but since he states categorically that he will not cooperate with the sentence, he expects "I expect they will issue a warrant for my arrest, haul me back before the judge, and put in me in jail for a certain time." And, given the fact that Dear is scheduled to be at the Kirkridge Institute in Pennsylvania next month to lead a workshop titled "The Passion, Death and Resurrection of the Nonviolent Jesus," it's quite possible that confrontation will happen quickly.

Third, an email today from an Chicago FOR member details the sentencing next Thursday, February 7th of five local activists. As part of a national effort organized by Voices for Creative Nonviolence, these peacemakers were arrested in March 2007 for witnessing in a congressional office. From the email:

As [U.S. Rep.] Mark Kirk sits on the House Appropriations Committee, about 15 peacemakers from across the Chicagoland area visited Mr. Kirk's office last March, in attempt to secure a committment from Mr. Kirk to oppose further funding for the Iraq War. We asked Kirk's staffers to fax our request to Mr. Kirk, and said we thought we should stay until we heard his response. They refused to send our request along. The office closed. We indicated we believed we should stay until our message was forwarded and Mr. Kirk gave us a response. The staffers (and police) said we were free to remain in the office until the office reopened the next morning. Five people settled in for what we believed would be a long overnight vigil and the chance to continue followup the next morning. Some four hours later, while peacemakers lay sleeping on the office floor, about ten Northbrook police rushed in - arresting people on the spot.

Let's keep all of these activists in our thoughts in the coming days and months, through the period of their sentencing and as some are forced to serve time in jail or prison.