Det danske Fredsakademi
Kronologi over fredssagen og international politik 5 Oktober
2013 / Time Line October 5, 2013
Version 3.5
4. Oktober 2013, 6. Oktober 2013
10/05/2013
Den amerikanske
præst, atompacifist og antikrigsmodstander Philip Berrigan
fødes, 1923.
10/05/2013
The American pastor, nuclear pacifist and anti-war opponent Philip
Berrigan is born, 1923.
10/05/2013
D. 5. oktober holder Århus mod Krig og Terror og
Folkebevægelsen mod EU i Aarhus Fredsfestival under
overskriften: ”EU skaber krig – ikke fred”.
10/05/2013
Nun Faces Up To 30 Years in Prison for Protesting at Nuclear
Weapons Facility
District judge denies appeal of Sister Megan Rice, 83, and two
other activists, citing their intent to 'disarm' Oak Ridge
By Karen McVeigh
October 05, 2013 "Information Clearing House - "Guardian" - An
octogenarian Roman Catholic nun, jailed for breaking into a nuclear
weapons facility in Tennessee, is facing up to 30 years in prison
after losing her plea for the most serious charge to be
dropped.
Sister Megan Rice, 83, and two fellow peace activists staged a
non-violent protest to symbolically disarm the Oak Ridge Y-12
nuclear weapons facility, home to the nation's main supply of
highly enriched uranium, in July. They were initially charged with
trespassing, a misdemeanor punishable by up to a year in prison,
but felony charges quickly followed. They were eventually convicted
of interfering with national security and damage to federal
property.
This week, a judge denied a motion to acquit them of interfering
with national security under the sabotage section of the US
criminal code, which carries the harshest prison sentence of up to
20 years. Rice and her two fellow activists, Greg Boertje-Obed, 57,
a carpenter, and Michael Walli, 68, a veteran, now face up to 30
years in prison, although the ruling by district judge Amul Thapar,
in the eastern district of Tennessee, suggests their sentences will
be more lenient than the maximum allowed.
The three describe themselves as 'Transform Now Plowshares', a
reference to a passage in the bible, Isaiah 2:4, which states:
"They shall beat their swords into ploughshares and their spears
into pruning hooks; nation shall not lift up sword against nation,
neither shall they learn war any more."
They are currently in the Irwin County detention center, Georgia,
awaiting their sentence.
In his ruling denying the so-called Rule 29 motion, Thapar writes:
"The defendants are entitled to their views regarding the morality
of nuclear weapons. But the defendants' sincerely held moral
beliefs are not a get-out-of-jail-free card that they can deploy to
escape criminal liability."
Bill Quigley, a law professor at Loyola University-New Orleans who
works pro bono for the three, said "everybody is disappointed" by
the decision. "We believe really strongly that they did not do
anything that could be constituted as sabotage or violating the
national security of the US. The prosecution admits that national
security was not damaged. Their theory is that even though it
wasn't damaged, the protesters intended to."
However, he said he took heart from the judge's acknowledgment that
the non-violent nature of the protesters and their characters would
be taken into consideration at sentencing.
The New York Times described the break-in as he "the biggest
security breach" in the nation's atomic history.
The protesters argue that while they entered the plant with the
intention of causing some symbolic damage, including painting
slogans on buildings, their non-violent behaviour and peaceful
natures could not be interpreted as trying to interfere with
national defence. They argued that no reasonable jury could have
found intent to cause harm, that the government had failed to prove
any intent, and that their non-violent actions did not actually
damage national defence.
However, in his ruling dated 1 October, the judge cites the
defendants' phone calls made while in custody, including one in
which Rice said the three entered Y-12 to "begin the work of
disarmament"; Thapar argues this was evidence that they acted to
frustrate the plant's mission to store and enrich uranium. The
mission, he says, was among "activities of national
preparedness".
At one point in the ruling, the judge refers to the sabotage charge
and asks the question: "But what about the fact of the defendant's
non-violence – does it make sense to deal as harshly with
non-violence protesters as with foreign saboteurs?" He concludes
that, the court must interpret the criminal statute by its terms
and "cannot fashion case-by-case exceptions of sympathetic
defendants". He goes on to say the defendants' non-violence will be
relevant at sentencing.
The court must account for both the "nature and circumstances of
the offense and the history and characteristics" of the defendants,
he says. He also dismissed the defendants' Rule 33 motion,
requiring a retrial based on the prosecutor's alleged
misconduct.
Ralph Hutchinson, co-ordinator for Oak Ridge Environmental Peace
Alliance, said he was disappointed but not surprised by the ruling.
He said he spoke to Rice after the ruling and she told him: "We're
fine, we're fine, it's all good."
10/05/2013
Questions raised over Iraq congenital birth defects
study
Paul C Webster
The release of a study on congenital birth defects in Iraq has been
met with controversy, with some experts questioning its methodology
and peer review. Paul C Webster reports.
WHO officials have stepped in to defend an unsigned and sharply
criticised report released by the Iraqi Ministry of Health (MOH) on
congenital birth defects in areas where US-led coalition forces
used toxin-laced munitions.
The Lancet, Volume 382, Issue 9899, Pages 1165 - 1166, 5 October
2013 . doi:10.1016/S0140-6736(13)61812-7
-
http://www.emro.who.int/images/stories/iraq/documents/Congenital_birth_defects_report.pdf
10/05/2013
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