Occupation Project in the News

Jury acquits six in protest -- Maine

Jeff Leys — Thu, 01 May 2008 15:08:13 -0500

Short Information Teaser

6 acquitted after trial for occupation of Senator Collins office in Maine

Excerpt

May 1, 2008

Acquittal in Maine: Standing in front of the Penobscot County Courthouse while the jury deliberated their fate are, from left to right: Doug Rawlings, Henry Braun, Jimmy Freeman, Dud Hendrick, Rob Shetterly and Jonathan Kreps. (Photo: Kelly Bellis)> “I think that the public in Maine is so disgusted with the war in Iraq that they demonstrated their disgust with this verdict,” said (District Attorney R. Christopher) Almy, a Democrat. “And, that they are upset with [Sen. Olympia] Snowe and Collins for getting us involved in this debacle.”

“At this point,” Almy said, “we’re going to have to consider the precedent that this verdict sets and we may very well have to consider giving these cases to the U.S. attorney to prosecute because this state court case may preclude successful future prosecutions.

“Also, I would like to say that Snowe and Collins got us involved in this mismanaged war and it may be up to them to persuade the U.S. attorney to take on these cases,” he concluded.

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Thursday, May 01, 2008

Pax Christi Maine has additional photos and information.

The following article is from the Bangor Daily News. The photo is by Kelly Bellis, present in support of those on trial that day.

Judy Harrison
Bangor Daily News

BANGOR, Maine - Six longtime anti-war activists arrested last year for refusing to leave the Federal Building when it closed for the day were found not guilty Wednesday of criminal trespass.Acquittal in Maine: Standing in front of the Penobscot County Courthouse while the jury deliberated their fate are, from left to right: Doug Rawlings, Henry Braun, Jimmy Freeman, Dud Hendrick, Rob Shetterly and Jonathan Kreps. (Photo: Kelly Bellis)

A Penobscot County Superior Court jury deliberated for 2½ hours after a two-day trial.

The defendants, who live in communities from Wells to Bangor, were arrested along with six others on March 8, 2007, at a protest at U.S. Sen. Susan Collins’ office in the Harlow Street building.

They said they were protesting President Bush’s proposal to increase the number of U.S. combat troops in Iraq to support a military strategy known as the surge. Members of the group also were urging Collins to vote against continued funding for the war.

After the verdict was announced about 1:45 p.m., the defendants, their attorneys and their supporters celebrated on the steps of the courthouse in between interviews with reporters.

Jonathan Kreps, 57, of Appleton, Henry Braun, 77, of Wells, James Freeman, 59, of Verona, Dudley F. Hendrick, 66, of Deer Isle, Douglas Rawlings, 61, of Chesterville, and Robert Shetterly, 61, of Brooksville, chose to go to trial. The other six pleaded guilty and paid fines.

“To be honest, I’m a little incredulous,” Freeman said after the verdict. “I thought there was a remote chance that we’d have a hung jury, but I didn’t expect this. The fact that this was a not-guilty verdict says something about the way the wind is blowing in this state.

“People have had enough of this war, enough of corruption and enough of high oil prices,” he said. “We can’t continue to spend $12 billion a month on the war and not be affected at home.”

Freeman, Hendrick and Shetterly represented themselves.

Attorney Philip Worden of Northeast Harbor represented Rawlings.

“The key to the verdict was the great defendants,” said attorney Lynne Williams of Bar Harbor, who represented Kreps and Braun. “They were sincere, believable and honest. That, along with very careful jury selection, is why we have this verdict.”

Williams said that Superior Court Justice William R. Anderson, who presided over the jury selection process but not the trial, allowed a defense-proposed question about potential jurors’ attitudes toward civil disobedience. Justice Michaela Murphy presided over the trial.

Brendan Trainer, assistant district attorney for Penobscot County, prosecuted the case. He referred questions to District Attorney R. Christopher Almy.

“I think that the public in Maine is so disgusted with the war in Iraq that they demonstrated their disgust with this verdict,” said Almy, a Democrat. “And, that they are upset with [Sen. Olympia] Snowe and Collins for getting us involved in this debacle.”

State law, he said, does not allow the prosecution to appeal a not guilty verdict.

Almy, who praised Trainer’s presentation of the case, said the verdict most likely would affect whether his office prosecutes protesters arrested in the Federal Building in the future.

“At this point,” Almy said, “we’re going to have to consider the precedent that this verdict sets and we may very well have to consider giving these cases to the U.S. attorney to prosecute because this state court case may preclude successful future prosecutions.

“Also, I would like to say that Snowe and Collins got us involved in this mismanaged war and it may be up to them to persuade the U.S. attorney to take on these cases,” he concluded.

When informed of the verdict, Jen Burita, a spokeswoman for Collins, said Wednesday, “We are pleased that the matter has been resolved.”

U.S. Attorney Paula Silsby, who is based in Portland, said she would have to research whether her office had jurisdiction to prosecute people arrested in the federal building in Bangor. Many years ago, she said, protesters arrested at the Federal Building in Portland were prosecuted in federal court.

A woman juror who refused to be identified talked to the defendants on the courthouse steps after the verdict. She said that the war really did not factor into the verdict.

The juror said that the state did not meet its burden of proof on the first element needed to prove them guilty of criminal trespass — whether the protesters were in the Federal Building knowing they were not licensed or privileged to be there.

“I testified that I felt we had an obligation to be there,” Freeman said, when asked if he felt he had a right to be in the Federal Building after he had been told to leave.

He speculated that his acquittal and that of his co-defendants would increase the number of protests against the war.

The six others arrested during the protest pleaded guilty to criminal trespass between May 2007 and January 2008 and paid the following fines:

Patricia L. Wheeler, 62, Deer Isle, $200.

Nancy W. Hill, 54, Stonington, $400.

Judith Robbins, 59, Sedgwick, $400.

Peter Robbins, 59, Sedgwick, $200.

Diane Fitzgerald, 66, Blue Hill, $200.

Maureen R. Block, 53, Swanville, $200.

The fine for a first conviction is $200, the fine for a second is $400.

Project

The Occupation Project

Protesters guilty only of acting on their beliefs

voices — Mon, 10 Dec 2007 17:56:42 -0600

Project

The Occupation Project

Short Information Teaser

Two days of trial for 3 of the Salazar Seven ends with suspension of $50 fines and court costs

Excerpt

By Bill Johnson
Rocky Mountain News
December 7, 2007

They had, in the end, absolutely no chance for acquittal. You don’t need a fancy law degree hanging on the wall to see that.

Indeed, a Denver County Court jury of four women and two men on Thursday convicted all three after less than an hour of deliberation on charges of trespassing. They were quite obviously guilty.

What was even easier to figure after two days of trial was that trespassing, alone, was never once the sole point for Rafael Eggers, Sue Gomez or Merrill Carter.

Their trial before Judge Claudia J. Jordan, besides being great theater, was a sometimes-riveting lesson in the responsibility of the governed to hold accountable those elected to govern, and on the price that is paid when the effort falls on deaf ears.

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By Bill Johnson
Rocky Mountain News
December 7, 2007

They had, in the end, absolutely no chance for acquittal. You don’t need a fancy law degree hanging on the wall to see that.

Indeed, a Denver County Court jury of four women and two men on Thursday convicted all three after less than an hour of deliberation on charges of trespassing. They were quite obviously guilty.

What was even easier to figure after two days of trial was that trespassing, alone, was never once the sole point for Rafael Eggers, Sue Gomez or Merrill Carter.

A little background: All they wanted was a brief chat with U.S. Sen. Ken Salazar. Eggers, Gomez and Carter were among a group of people who had been after him for months to vote against continued funding of the Iraq War.

They had called him, e-mailed him and snail-mailed him, finally arranging a Feb. 1 meeting with Matt Cheroutes, then an aide to the senator.

The meeting, the calls and the mail, they would later contend, were met with yeah-yeah-we-get-it responses.

Another funding request from the Defense Department was approaching. Congress was in recess. They would press their case with the senator on Feb. 21. In his office.

They arrived, about a dozen of them, shortly after 1:30 p.m. The senator that day was touring the federal prison in Florence with then-U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales. They would not leave, the group told his staff, until they met with him personally or at least spoke with him on the telephone.

So they sat on the floor and began reading the names of the Colorado military dead and the Iraqi dead, ringing a bell after each name.

At 5 p.m., the office’s closing time, seven were left. They were asked to leave. They refused. Police arrived at about 5:30 with handcuffs and leg shackles. Four would plead no contest or guilty.

Assistant City Attorney Robert F. Reynolds barely broke a sweat proving his case against the remaining three, each acknowledging on the stand that they had remained in the senator’s office past closing time.

Yet their intent, contended their lawyer, Walter Gerash, was not to trespass, “but to save lives.”

“These three stood for life over death, for communication over worrying about when a door is closed,” he told the jury.

“It is our duty, not just our right, to stop atrocities when we see them, and atrocities are occurring in Iraq,” testified a defiant Merrill Carter, 50.

As a young man, he testified, he had become fascinated by the Nuremberg trials that followed World War II, how many German citizens were convicted of war crimes for standing silent in the face of Nazi atrocities they witnessed. It informed who he is today, he said.

Sue Gomez is 61, soft-spoken, a former nurse who for 13 years worked as a church secretary and spent several years as a missionary to the poor in Mexico. She now works at the Catholic Worker homeless shelter in Denver.

She never blinked on the stand while explaining why 5 p.m. meant little to her.

“Violence does not stop violence,” she said. “Anything done to bring light to the immorality of this war was worth the risk of my being inconvenienced.”

Some people see things more clearly and a lot faster than most of us. The Salazar Seven, as they dubbed themselves - the seven who went to jail for actions on a day when Ken Salazar refused to even put in a call to his own office - are among them.

And it was almost surreal to hear them testify of peace and of attempting to save soldiers’ lives.

I realized that I have witnessed this war from both sides of it, on the roads, streets and hellholes of Iraq with soldiers, and in a courtroom with those fully convinced none of them should have ever stepped foot there.

Having witnessed the sacrifice made on both sides, all I honestly see is patriotism - the real kind in which men and women of courage risk everything they are in the name of a country they love.

Sue Gomez, Rafael Eggers and Merrill Carter, I have come to see, are just as heroic as Sgt. 1st Class Justin Vasquez, Lt. Mike Smith, Lt. Col. Ross Brown and Specialist Scott Ulbrich, men and women who put everything on the line in service to our freedoms.

In the end, perhaps even Judge Jordan saw this. She fined each of the three $50, immediately suspending all of it. She suspended court costs payments, too.

The true irony of Thursday’s trial?

Ken Salazar, right or wrong, is now a leading opponent of the Defense Department’s request for additional funding for the war in Iraq, believing there is no solution to an adventure that has cost nearly 4,000 American lives and untold thousands of Iraqi lives.

“For us, it is a victory of sorts,” Merrill Carter said after the trial. “I still wish he would take a stronger stance. People are still dying. But he is coming around.

“Maybe it proves democracy works, that it doesn’t just happen in a voting booth. You have to work at it. You have to be vigilant.”

Recap of 2007 Nonviolent Civil Resistance Actions

Jeff Leys — Sat, 08 Dec 2007 09:15:19 -0600

Short Information Teaser

The Nuclear Resister newsletter that chronicles nonviolent civil resistance in 2007.

Excerpt

Download here (it is a 4 mb file) the current issue of the Nuclear Resister that chronicles the widening and deepening campaigns of nonviolent civil resistance to end the Iraq war; to end the use of torture by the U.S. and the role played by such facilities as School of the Americas, Fort Huachuca and Guantanamo; to blockade weapons shipments at ports; and to challenge military recruitment.

The Nuclear Resister is the most comprehensive chronicle of nonviolent civil resistance published in the United States, with prior issues still available.

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The Nuclear Resister is the most comprehensive chronicle of nonviolent civil resistance published in the United States, with prior issues still available.

Description of the Nuclear Resister

Since 1980, the Nuclear Resister has provided comprehensive reporting on arrests for anti-nuclear civil resistance in the United States, with an emphasis on providing support for the women and men jailed for these actions. In 1990, the Nuclear Resister also began reporting on anti-war arrests in North America, plus overseas anti-nuclear and anti-war resistance with the same emphasis on prisoner support.

The Nuclear Resister is published about every two months and serves to network this nonviolent resistance movement while acting as a clearinghouse for information about contemporary nonviolent resistance to war and the nuclear threat. We believe that in any significant movement for social change, many committed individuals are imprisoned. Behind bars, they are physically isolated from their supporters and their own resistance activity is limited. Broader awareness of their actions and support for the imprisoned activist are essential to the movement for a peaceful, nuclear-free future.

Each issue provides the names and jail addresses of currently imprisoned anti-nuclear and anti-war activists. Readers are encouraged to provide active support by writing letters to those behind bars and in other ways requested by the prisoners.

You Can Help

Please send news, updates and donations! Mail, e-mail or phone in new action reports, updates, jail information, statements, graphics, photos & clippings about local actions.

Subscriptions and Bulk Orders

One-year subscriptions are US $15 in the United States, US$20 to Canada, and US$25 overseas. Payment can only be accepted in US currency or checks drawn on US institutions. All subscriptions are sent via First Class or Airmail. Please inquire about multiple copies of the current issue for free distribution at conferences, workshops, trainings, etc.

Contact Information

the Nuclear Resister
POB 43383
Tucson, AZ 85733
520-323-8697
nukeresister@igc.org

Project

The Occupation Project

Des Moines Jury Finds Protesters Not Guilty

Dan Pearson — Fri, 12 Oct 2007 10:04:21 -0500

Short Information Teaser

Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, September/October 2007

Excerpt

Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, September/October 2007, pages 49-50

By Michael Gillespie

IN A DRAMATIC ending to a three-day trial, a jury unanimously found five Iowa peace activists “not guilty” of charges of trespassing at the Des Moines office of Iowa Republican Sen. Charles Grassley in February. Acquitted in the July 11 verdict were Des Moines peace activist Elton Davis, Iowa Methodist Federation for Social Action member Chester Guinn, American Friends Service Committee (AFSC) Iowa Program Coordinator Kathleen McQuillen, Catholic Peace Ministry executive director Brian Terrell, and Catholic Just Faith member Dixie Webb.

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Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, September/October 2007, pages 49-50

By Michael Gillespie

Even before the verdict was returned the case had attracted national attention, in part because the five defendants admitted that they had, in fact, refused an order by a U.S. Department of Homeland Security inspector to leave Grassley’s office. The anti-war protesters argued that they had a First Amendment right to have their grievance heard by their senator—a right denied them by Senator Grassley and his staff.

The protest (see December 2006 Washington Report, pp. 62-63) was carried out in conjunction with The Occupation Project, a sustained campaign of nonviolent civil disobedience planned to focus attention on widespread public sentiment against the Iraq war. Among those testifying for the defense was Jeff Leys, co-director of Voices for Creative Non-Violence and Occupation Project organizer.

After members of Senator Grassley’s office staff refused to make eye contact with the activists and ignored their presence in the office, the Iowa activists reverently read aloud from lists of names of American servicemen and servicewomen and of Iraqis killed in the war.

“We brought a grievance,” said Terrell. “We brought a list of names. Each name is a grievance.”

A Grassley staffer proceeded to call a Homeland Security officer to the senator’s office, and the officer interrupted the reading of the names of the dead. Des Moines Police Department officers were summoned to arrest the activists.

District Court Judge Odell McGee allowed Terrell to read the Amendment aloud to the court for the purpose of “judicial notice.”

Terrell read: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.”

The jury’s not guilty verdict on grounds of constitutional justification strongly suggests that the jurors agreed that the protesters’ right to freedom of speech, to peaceably assemble, and to have their grievances heard by their elected representative had been abridged by their arrest.

Terrell and Davis represented themselves, while Guinn, McQuillen and Webb were represented by noted Des Moines civil and human rights attorney and National Lawyers Guild member Sally Frank, who teaches law at Drake Law School in Des Moines.

On the July 5 edition of National Public Radio’s “The Diane Rehm Show,” a scholar from the neoconservative American Enterprise Institute singled out Iowa as “a state that has perhaps the strongest anti-war movement in the country.”

Project

The Occupation Project

Protesters grow frustrated as war wears on

Dan Pearson — Wed, 10 Oct 2007 12:29:58 -0500

Short Information Teaser

Some activists use civil disobedience to force change

Excerpt

Monday, October 08, 2007

By Robert Stern / Times of Trenton

TRENTON, NJ — Mary Ellen Marino has had enough of the Iraq war.

She is fed up that too many lawmakers from both political parties are acting too slowly or not at all in heeding the message from anti-war activists like herself that it’s past time that U.S. troops leave Iraq.

It’s a message that Marino, a peace activist from Princeton Borough, and other demonstrators are trying to deliver not just through anti-war marches but also by directly pressuring individual members of Congress through smaller-scale rallies, sit-ins and lobbying of their offices.

Even civil disobedience — generally in the form of purposely occupying a legislator’s office even beyond business hours — has become a tactic meant to draw attention and provoke change.

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Monday, October 08, 2007

By Robert Stern / Times of Trenton

TRENTON, NJ — Mary Ellen Marino has had enough of the Iraq war.

Even civil disobedience — generally in the form of purposely occupying a legislator’s office even beyond business hours — has become a tactic meant to draw attention and provoke change.

“My concern is that we’ve done all the things that people can do but the Congress itself is not using the techniques that are available to them” to end the war and even to initiate impeachment of President George W. Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney, said Marino.

Ed Dunphy, an anti-war activist from Washington Township who is a member of the Princeton Borough-based Coalition for Peace Action, expressed similar frustration.

“No one is holding this president or this administration accountable for what I consider to be lies and deceptions that led us into this invasion and occupation of Iraq,” Dunphy said.

Dunphy and Marino were among some 30 people who tried to draw more attention to the anti-war cause when they staged a protest inside and outside Republican U.S. Rep. Chris Smith’s Hamilton office on Aug. 29, although the congressman wasn’t there himself.

Hamilton police said Friday they are still investigating who is responsible for vandalism that was discovered — cords linking computers were ripped from a central hub, causing a system crash — in Smith’s office 30 minutes after the protest.

Several of the protesters present that day have said in press interviews that causing damage to the office wasn’t part of the demonstration plan and expressed doubt that any of their fellow demonstrators are to blame.

And protesters throughout the country, from Dunphy and Marino in Mercer County to Jeff Leys in Illinois, emphasize they are fed up with both Republicans and Democrats over the Iraq war.

“My frustrations are as much with the Democrats as with the Republicans because the Democrats seem to only want to re-elect themselves and the Republicans seem to want to maintain the power,” Marino said, alleging that “the Democratic leaders are afraid of the propaganda machine of the Republicans.”

Leys, one of the organizers of the nationwide Occupation Project — “a campaign of sustained nonviolent civil disobedience aimed at ending funding for the U.S. war in and occupation of Iraq” — said he doesn’t look at the protest strategy as a Democrat or Republican matter, but rather as one addressed to both parties.

Increasingly, anti-war activists have made use of civil disobedience — risking fines and jail time — to put pressure on individual members of Congress so the troops will come home.

“What we’ve seen, especially over the last year, I think, is nonviolent civil resistance, nonviolent civil disobedience … to try to much more effectively target senators and representatives,” Leys said.

Leys said he himself was arrested three times during demonstrations this spring.

One was at the Illinois office of Senate Assistant Majority Leader Dick Durbin, D-Ill.; another was at the Washington, D.C., office of Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz.; and a third was at the Wisconsin office of U.S. Rep. Dave Obey, D-Wis., who is chairman of the House Appropriations Committee.

In the McCain case, Leys said he was found guilty of disorderly conduct and had to pay a $50 fine, while the case in the Durbin demonstration was dismissed and the Obey one has yet to be settled in court.

Since Feb. 5, when the Occupation Project kicked off, Leys said there have been about 400 arrests of demonstrators who held protests inside the offices of 42 representatives and senators all over the U.S.

The idea isn’t to get arrested — it’s to send a message and change lawmakers’ minds on providing funding for keeping U.S. forces in Iraq, he said.

“Fifteen (of the 42) ended up voting against the final version of the supplemental Iraq spending bill,” earlier this year, Leys said. Of those 15, 14 had voted for the funding last year.

However, every one of those 15 lawmakers was a Democrat, even though the Occupation Project targeted Republican members of Congress as well, he said.

Dunphy and others who are involved in the anti-war movement — both now and during the Vietnam War — including Princeton Borough-based attorney R. William Potter, said it’s unfortunate that popular sentiment against the Iraq war hasn’t triggered a larger, more sustained groundswell of mass demonstrations and student activism.

The anti-war strategies during the Vietnam War “had a great deal more energy behind them because of the draft,” Potter said. Even so, he said, “it still took a long time to end that disastrous war.”

Now the outcry hasn’t been as energetic because the galvanizing element of a draft isn’t present as it was during Vietnam, Potter said.

“On the other hand, we have a great deal of support for ending the war simply because Bush and his stay-the-course strategy has lost all credibility with the majority of the voting public,” Potter contends.

“There is broad public disgust with President Bush and his utter lack of credibility on the origins of the war and the need to continue it,” he said. “I think it balances out the relative lack of energy to oppose the war.”

Another notable difference between the anti-war movement now and the backlash against the Vietnam War is that the current movement got going in earnest in the months leading up to the war, said the Rev. Bob Moore, executive director of the Princeton Coalition for Peace Action.

“In Vietnam, of course, before a significant peace movement emerged, we had already been there for five or six years, whereas this time we had mobilized a huge outcry and protest before the war even broke out,” Moore said.

He said leaders and participants in the anti-war campaign have to evaluate and adjust their strategy to bring about change in U.S. policy on military involvement in Iraq.

“The question of effectiveness is a very important question for leaders of peacemaking,” Moore said.

Part of that question deals with who should be the focus of demonstrations.

“As the public opinion corner began to be turned (against keeping large numbers of U.S. troops in Iraq), we have focused more and more on the Congress,” Moore said.

That’s because Congress has the Constitutional power to control the purse strings that determine spending for the Iraq war.

“The Congress was literally who stopped the Vietnam War, and we want them to stop this war,” Moore said.

Contact Robert Stern at or (609) 989-5731.

Project

The Occupation Project

Iowa: 30 Day Sentence for Resisting Iraq War

Jeff Leys — Sat, 06 Oct 2007 19:28:31 -0500

Short Information Teaser

Long time social justice advocate Frank Cordaro sentenced to 30 days for Occupation Project act.

Excerpt

Cordaro Gets 30 Days after Protest:
The anti-war activist was arrested last month during a sit-in at the Des Moines office of Sen. Charles Grassley

By Abby Simmons
Des Moines Register
October 6, 2007

Anti-war activist Frank Cordaro left a Polk County courtroom in handcuffs Friday after receiving a 30-day jail term for his latest protest.

The 56-year-old Des Moines man pleaded guilty to a trespassing charge along with two other people who took part in a sit-in last month with several high school students at U.S. Sen. Charles Grassley’s Des Moines office.

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Cordaro Gets 30 Days after Protest:
The anti-war activist was arrested last month during a sit-in at the Des Moines office of Sen. Charles Grassley

By Abby Simmons
Des Moines Register
October 6, 2007

Anti-war activist Frank Cordaro left a Polk County courtroom in handcuffs Friday after receiving a 30-day jail term for his latest protest.

This the latest trip behind bars for the former priest and well-known activist. He has received several jail sentences and prison terms for his nonviolent war protests.

District Associate Judge Cynthia Moisan told Cordaro the jail sentence was based on his criminal record - which included eight prior trespassing convictions - and the fact that he had not paid fines from recent convictions.

Cordaro, who with his supporters appeared visibly surprised by the sentence, handed his car keys to a friend and waived his right to have an attorney before addressing Moisan.

“I want you to know it was a great privilege to act with these young people to stand up against this immoral, illegal and unjust war,” Cordaro said. “Any time I serve in jail will only add to that honor and privilege.”

Polk County Jail records show that Cordaro has been arrested seven times in Des Moines alone for criminal trespassing charges since 2000. An additional charge from 1997 shows that he served jail time for willful disturbance. He has also served multiple jail sentences for trespass-related crimes.

Des Moines Hoover High School senior Aaron Glynn, 18, and Renee Espeland, 46, also pleaded guilty Friday. Each was fined $260 plus court costs.

Cordaro’s most recent arrest involved about a dozen members of the group Students Beyond War who refused to leave Grassley’s office until they could speak with the senator to obtain his pledge to no longer vote to provide money for the Iraq war.

Cordaro, Glynn and Espeland were charged as adults, while three other teenagers were charged as juveniles.

After Cordaro was led off to jail, Espeland said the 30-day sentence was unexpected but not a complete shock. The sentence showed that protests of the war were beginning to have an impact, she said.

“When it comes to peace activism, having some sort of personal equity in the way that the guys enlisting are makes it quite honorable to do the jail time,” she said.

Glynn said that despite the consequences, he would be willing to risk arrest again - though not anytime soon. Glynn said his actions were the result of doing what he could to end what he called an “unjust war.”

“I think everyone should feel responsible,” he said.

Project

The Occupation Project

Des Moines, IA High School Students Arrested at Senator Grassley's Office

Jeff Leys — Sat, 22 Sep 2007 09:54:53 -0500

Short Information Teaser

4 Des Moines high school students arrested in Occupation Project action

Excerpt

Students sit to take a stand: 4 D.M. war opponents who refuse to leave Grassley’s office are arrested

By Abby Simmons
Staff Writer
Des Moines Register
Published September 22, 2007

Keyboards clacked as staff worked in U.S. Sen. Charles Grassley’s downtown Des Moines headquarters. And, still, the kids sat in a circle on the floor of the small office, talking war and peace while passing around a copy of Thomas Merton’s “The Nonviolent Solution.”

Discount the out-of-place setting - and the eventual arrest and criminal trespass charges filed against four Des Moines high school students who refused to leave the Republican’s office in protest of the Iraq war - and it was just another peace meeting.

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Students sit to take a stand: 4 D.M. war opponents who refuse to leave Grassley’s office are arrested

By Abby Simmons
Staff Writer
Des Moines Register
Published September 22, 2007

The small but dedicated group of a dozen teenagers - plus a couple of adults and a 10-year-old - marked a new, youthful resurgence in the city’s peace movement as the members of Students Beyond War conducted a three-hour occupation of the office during a Friday off from school, demanding that Grassley promise to not vote for more funding of the war.

Receptionists for Grassley, who was en route to Iowa from Washington, said they would take down the visitors’ information. But four protesters pledged to not leave until securing the promise or being arrested.

Des Moines police took into custody Aaron Glynn, 18, of Hoover High School; Amanda Hicks, 17, also of Hoover; Abby Olson, 17, of Dowling Catholic High School; and Reetzi Hughes, 14, of Roosevelt High School. Those four - along with Frank Cordaro, 56, and Renee Espeland, 46, who is Hughes’ mother - were then cited and released.

Federal security officers and then Des Moines police repeatedly asked the group to leave as the building closed at 6 p.m. Even then, there was little hostility.

At one point, a receptionist in the office handed Frankie Hughes, 10, a sucker as they waited for police to arrive. Frankie is Reetzi Hughes’ sister.

Grassley press secretary Beth Levine issued a statement saying Grassley “is looking for the best way possible to draw down the U.S. commitment as quickly as possible, while also looking out for U.S. interests and security in the long term.”

“It’s important for Americans to exercise their constitutional rights to express their grievances peacefully. And Senator Grassley hopes the young Iowans who visited his office today received an educational experience,” Levine said Friday.

The students said their passion for ending the war outweighed the potential effects as they apply for college.

Glynn, a senior who wants to be an engineer, has applied at Princeton and Stanford universities, among others. He said he is fully aware that his mug shot will exist for eternity in Polk County records - and that below it, the description of the charge won’t read “trespassing for a noble cause.”

“The sort of people that look at a picture like that and assume guilt and recklessness - I don’t want to be a part of that,” Glynn said.

Even when it comes to the Ivy League? “Definitely.”

Parents were more admirable of the risk than angry about the consequences.

Olson’s mother, Julie Fugenschuh, said it’s likely the only circumstance under which she would be proud her daughter was taken into police custody.

“She’s standing up for what she believes in,” Fugenschuh said. “She’s repeated over and over to family members that we need to take the steps needed to end this war.

“… You worry for your kids. You don’t want anyone in harm’s way, but she’s done the peaceful thing, and there’s lots of worse things she could be arrested for.”

Cordaro, a longtime Des Moines peace activist, is no stranger to congressional office occupations or the jail time that can come with them.

Cordaro said he wasn’t acting as a pied piper of sorts when it came to training the students in nonviolent resistance and joining them in Grassley’s office.

“The kids, by studying this issue, show a certain maturity. Even the hesitant ones,” he said. “Most Americans disagree with this war, and these kids are asking the personal question of, ‘Am I willing to take this risk?’ “

Reporter Abby Simons can be reached at (515) 284-8136 or asimons@dmreg.com

Project

The Occupation Project

Idaho State Legislators to Request End to War Funding on Thursday

Jeff Leys — Wed, 29 Aug 2007 23:12:14 -0500

Excerpt

August 26, 2007

End the War! Boise Occupation Project Senate Office Vigils August 27-31

On Thursday, several Idaho legislators will join the Idaho Peace Coalition’s effort to get Idaho’s US Senators Mike Crapo and Larry Craig to withdraw their support for next year’s Iraq war funding.

Representatives Les Bock (Dist. 16), Nicole LeFavour (Dist. 19), Anne Pasley Stuart (Dist. 19), Phylis King (Dist. 18), Sue Chew (Dist. 17) and Sen. David Langhorst (Dist. 16) will deliver their letters to Senator Crapo at his Boise office – 251 E Front St – at 9:30 am, Thursday, August 30. They will also deliver letters to Senator Larry Craig’s office.

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August 26, 2007

End the War! Boise Occupation Project Senate Office Vigils August 27-31

In his letter to Senator Crapo Representative Les Bock said, “I am asking you to oppose President Bush’s request for an additional $145 billion for the Iraq War and work on bipartisan legislation to reduce the funding to only what is required for the protection and safe redeployment of all U.S. troops outside of Iraq.”

Everyone is welcome to come to Senator Crapo’s at 9:30 to support the legislators.

Thursday’s resistance team is Anna Almerico, Carolyn Fabis, Trish Pinkert-Branner, Judy Thorne, Tami Masarik, Jean Boyles, Chia Wood, Breanne Gratton, Lois Morgan, Penny Manning, Tyrel Trainor, Ciarran Burch, Henry Krewer, Jeff Harry, Gary Richardson, Liz Paul and Tina Noble.

Please keep the phones ringing. Senator Crapo: 334-1776 Senator Craig: 342-7985. The message is short and simple.

“Senator Craig/Crapo, Please support amendments to the FY08 Defense Appropriations Bill and the Supplemental Iraq Funding Bill that require the rapid and safe withdrawal of all troops and military contractors, and that stipulate a rapid timeline for the removal of all troops from Iraq. Vote to appropriate funds only to safely and rapidly withdraw all U.S. troops and military contractors from Iraq.”

You are also invited to come and stand in solidarity with the vigilers outside either of the offices. We will be there 9 am - 5 pm each day this week.

Senator Crapo 251 East Front Street (by WINCO) Boise, ID

US Senator Larry Craig 225 North 9th Street Boise, ID

Illinois: 3 Occupation Project related articles from The Daily Journal

voices — Fri, 24 Aug 2007 11:33:41 -0500

Project

The Occupation Project

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Braam, 2 others arrested for the third time

By Lee Provost
The Daily Journal
Aug 24, 2007

Manhattan’s Bob Braam was arrested for a third time Tuesday, this time outside of U.S. Sen. Richard Durbin’s Chicago office.

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Braam, 2 others arrested for the third time

By Lee Provost
The Daily Journal
Aug 24, 2007

Manhattan’s Bob Braam was arrested for a third time Tuesday, this time outside of U.S. Sen. Richard Durbin’s Chicago office.

Braam and two others were arrested after refusing to leave Durbin’s office as they sought his signature on a pledge to end funding for the war in Iraq. Braam said he had no idea if the senator was at the office.

The war protesters also press staff members for signatures to aid this cause.

“It would be fair to say this is what we were anticipating,” Braam said after his misdemeanor arrest.

The small group arrived at Durbin’s office at about 3 p.m., and they were unable to make any impression on staff members. Braam said normally the office staff engage in some conversation, but that wasn’t the case Tuesday.

He said shortly after their arrival they were asked to leave and when they didn’t, police were called. The senator has an office policy of only seeing people who have an appointment.

“It’s always disappointing that they don’t act as positively as we hoped,” Braam said. “But we will keep pressuring them and hopefully, little by little, we can get them to see things differently.”

Braam vowed to continue to press the issue.

Activists learn how to protest the war

By Lee Provost
The Daily Journal
Aug 24, 2007

A group of four walked into Congressman Jerry Weller’s Joliet office. They were on a mission.

They were not concerned with funding of Medicare nor were they interested in seeking the congressman’s participation in a Labor Day parade.

The foursome had one simple request. They wanted Weller’s signature on a pledge that stated the Morris Republican would no longer support funding for the war in Iraq.

Weller’s receptionist said the congressman was not in the office, but offered a conversation with Weller’s administrative chief. The group agreed to that.

When the administrative chief arrived, the four again repeated their request for a signature. Weller’s aide said he did not have that authority.

Fine, the four said, they would simply wait for the congressman’s return.

However, while they waited, they informed the staff that they would sit on the office floor and read the names of the Iraqi citizens and U.S. military who have lost their lives in the conflict that began in March 2003.

The staff said such disruption would not be tolerated, and the group was asked to stop or to take their activity outside. They refused. They had an appointment with the congressman, so they will wait.

Police were called. Arrests were made. Cuffs were placed.

This event was a role-playing exercise for the anti-war group “Occupation Project” that was held Saturday morning at the Monee residence of George Ochsenfeld. The national organization, Voices for Creative Nonviolence, which is based in Chicago, has started the project to teach activists how to civilly disobey law enforcement in order to make a political point.

The group that pledges nonviolent protests against the war is making a push to step up its efforts in pressing political leaders to withhold their support for funding of the war.

Since February, some 375 arrests of Occupation Project participants have been made in 26 states, including Illinois, for the occupation of the offices of 40 legislators.

More arrests are likely.

Manhattan’s Bob Braam, who participated in the training, said civil disobedience is a role a concerned citizenry must perform.

“I wish it didn’t have to be this way. If you don’t use your rights, you will eventually lose them. I don’t believe this war is right, and I’m going to do what I can to stop our involvement there,” he said. “It’s every citizen’s duty to use their rights. … But this is not without its dangers or consequences.”

Activists say time for civic duty has come

By Lee Provost
The Daily Journal
Aug 24, 2007

Bob Braam, of Manhattan, was arrested in March for not leaving the office of Republican U.S. Rep. Jerry Weller in Morris. He also was arrested on April 17 in Chicago, the same day he was elected to the Manhattan Public Library District’s board of trustees. And, the cuffs were snapped on his wrists again Tuesday.

Braam has been apprehended these three times because of his active participation in the Occupation Project, an anti-war effort that tries to get legislators to promise to stop funding the war in Iraq.

On Saturday, Braam participated in a civil disobedience training held at the home of George Ochsenfeld in Monee. Occupation Project volunteers, “occupy” the offices of elected officials until they get the legislator to agree to their demands or until they get arrested.

Two trainers, Ron Durham and Laurie Hasbrook, both of Chicago and members of the group Voices for Creative Nonviolence, which created the Occupation Project, were on hand Saturday instructing the 11 participants on the dos and don’ts of their “occupations.”

Durham, who has been arrested four times during occupations and Hasbrook, twice arrested, stressed that if a protester isn’t comfortable with being arrested, police often deliver a warning giving people a last chance to exit peacefully. If arrested, these are misdemeanor charges with a fine typically in the $100 range being the punishment.

“There is nothing wrong with changing your mind,” Hasbrook said. “If you thought you were ready (to be arrested), you can change your mind. That happens.”

Durham said most police are aware that the protesters are not there to battle law enforcement. “I always make it clear. I’m not resisting the police. I’m resisting the war.”

Much like a child’s first day of school, the fear associated with the anticipation of the event is almost always greater than the reality, Durham noted.

Ochsenfeld, a longtime opponent of the third Chicagoland airport near Peotone and president of the anti-airport group STAND, said he has also been concerned about the war and the U.S. occupation of Iraq for some time, and it’s time for people to speak out in greater numbers.

“More drastic action needs to be taken. We can’t rely on the Democrats in Congress to do anything. They have proven to be spineless,” he said. “We need civil disobedience. We are in a crisis state I believe and drastic action needs to be taken.”

To date, the war has cost taxpayers an estimated $454 billion and this price tag increases by an estimated $200 million each day. The costs go beyond dollars and cents as well. The lives of 3,706 U.S. servicemen and women have also been claimed as of Aug. 19. Estimates on Iraqi loss of life — civilians and fighters — range from about 50,000 to more than 600,000 since the war began, according to articles in the Washington Post and the Boston Globe.

6 Arrested in Rep. Loretta Sanchez's office in California

Ron Durham — Thu, 09 Aug 2007 12:47:38 -0500

Short Information Teaser

Members of Military Families Speak Out and others occupy office

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by Jennifer Delson
LA Times
August, 9 2007

Six antiwar demonstrators were arrested Wednesday at the Garden Grove office of Rep. Loretta Sanchez (D-Santa Ana) after camping there overnight and telling her they wouldn’t leave unless she promised not to approve more funding for the war in Iraq.

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by Jennifer Delson
LA Times
August, 9 2007

Most of the protesters are members of the group Military Families Speak Out, and some have relatives in the armed forces. They entered the office about 7 p.m. Tuesday during an open house. They sat on the floor in the lobby and refused to leave unless the congresswoman made the statement they wanted. Sanchez, who opposes the war, refused.

The lawmaker’s staff initially chose not to call police and allowed the group to stay overnight. Police removed the protesters in handcuffs about 8:15 a.m. Wednesday, while Sanchez was attending a meeting of Orange County Latino leaders.

The protesters were taken to the Garden Grove Police Department, where they were issued misdemeanor citations for trespassing. Five were released pending an October court hearing, but Robert Dietrich was being held because he refused to sign a document promising to appear in court.

Sanchez, Orange County’s only Democratic member of Congress, voted in 2002 against giving President Bush authorization to invade Iraq. More recently she voted to begin pulling troops out within 90 days.

Tuesday night Sanchez said she could not support the protesters because the $145 billion in Iraq war funding was in the same bill that would provide money to build the C-17 aircraft in California.

“I never voted for this war,” she said. But “I’m not going to vote against $2.1 billion for C-17 production, which is in California. That is just not going to happen.”

Protesters did not accept Sanchez’s argument.

“This is a war that was made up and people are dying, and there is no reason for it,” said Ed Garza, who was one of those arrested and who has a nephew in the military.

Medea Benjamin, who was not at the protest, said, “It’s quite immoral for Sanchez to say she is more concerned about jobs in her district than the lives of our soldiers.” Benjamin is co-founder of the national women’s peace group Code Pink.

Declaring the start of the sit-in, Patricia Alviso, whose son has served two tours in Iraq, said, “We risk arrest to demonstrate the level of our commitment to peace, and we risk arrest because our children risk far more.”

Once seated on the lobby floor, Alviso began reading the names of Californians killed in Iraq.

“Jeromy D. West,” she said.

“God forgive us,” the others responded.

“Aaron Boyles.”

“God forgive us.”

Such sit-ins have become more popular in the last year because of war critics’ desperation over the situation in Iraq, Benjamin said

Before Congress approved $95 billion for the Iraq war in March, protesters conducted sit-ins in the offices of several Democrats, including Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York and Rep. Edward J. Markey of Massachusetts. Also targeted were the offices of Republican critics of the war, such as Sen. Olympia J. Snowe of Maine.

Democrats have been targeted more than Republicans by the nonpartisan Military Families Speak Out because they control Congress, co-founder Nancy Lessin said. Code Pink is planning to camp out and conduct a hunger strike next week at the home of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-San Francisco).

When protesters refused to leave Sanchez’s office Wednesday, more than a dozen police officers surrounded it.

Those arrested were Garza, 60, of Santa Ana; Alviso, 55, of Huntington Beach; Dietrich, 61, of Los Angeles; Jarret Lovell, 34, of Costa Mesa; Abraham Ramirez, 23, of Fullerton; and Tutrang Tran, 25.

Project

The Occupation Project