nuclear-news

New charges against anti nuclear nun – carry 20 years’ gaol

 Title: Nuke Protesters Jailed   http://live.huffingtonpost.com/r/segment/anti-nuclear-protestors-vandalism-u.s./50c0a94d02a76018a1000004
Source: Huffington Post
Date: December 6, 2012
h/t Anonymous tip
Three anti-nuclear activists, including a nun, are charged under the Federal Sabotage Act for vandalizing the walls of a uranium facility with blood and peace messages.

[…] As part of an updated indictment announced on Wednesday, Greg Boertje-Obed, Michael Walli and Sister Megan Rice could spend 20 years in prison for the felony crime of injuring national-defense premises under the Sabotage Act.

“They are innocent of all these charges and feel that everything they did was legal and moral, and I think they believe that this (new charge) is ridiculous,” said Bill Quigley, a law professor at Loyola University New Orleans and one of the attorneys representing the three. […]

Rice said she was unmoved by the additional years in federal prison she and her fellow demonstrators now face. “We have considered all of that long before we went in,” she said. “We feel this is something to give our lives for.”

[…] As the case proceeds it will likely remain an embarrassment for the federal government, which failed to secure the enrichment facility against three aging peace protesters. But it will also provide a public platform for the three to make their anti-nuclear views known to a public that has largely ignored the movement since the end of the Cold War. […]

In response to a question about whether the protesters did “willfully injure, destroy and contaminate, and attempt to injure, destroy and contaminate national-defense premises,” as the indictment charges, Rice said, “Each of the verbs you have repeated would apply to what the government would do in the nuclear weapons industry alone.”

The case, she said, is “a very good opportunity to point that out to those who live in a state of denial.”

December 8, 2012 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | Legal, USA