2013-04-01 "Nonviolent Protester of Drone Wars Sentenced to Federal Prison" by
David Swanson
from "Validated Independent News" [http://www.mediafreedominternational.org/2013/04/01/nonviolent-protester-of-drone-wars-sentenced-to-federal-prison/]:
Student Researcher: Ashley Girdler, Sonoma State University
Community Evaluator: Teagan Parks, Teacher at a private school
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Catholic Worker Brian Terrell of Maloy, Iowa has been sentenced to serve six months in a federal prison for his witness against the use of drone warfare. Brian was expressing his freedom of speech and was participating in a non-violent protest.
Brian and a few others trespassed on an Air Force Base to protest the Drone Wars. Brian stated “Each of the government’s witnesses, all of them Air Force police personnel, testified that participants in this protest were nonviolent, respectful and peaceable in assembling at Whiteman Air Force Base, a government installation, to petition that government for redress of a grievance, demanding that the remote control killing carried out daily from Whiteman cease. They testified that at no time, before or during our protest, did they perceive us as a threat.” There was no crime committed but yet he is being sentenced for federal prison?
Brian also said, “In our trial here last month, as at our protest in April, our intention has been to put the illegally operated predator drones on trial and so we have focused on the machines that are sowing death and terror in Afghanistan and Pakistan by remote control from Whiteman Air Force Base. It was never our intention to address or to protest the weapons system that is the larger mission of Whiteman, namely the B-2 Stealth Bomber.” So this man is being punished because he was practicing his first amendment right.
Source: War Is A Crime.Org, October 11, 2012
[http://warisacrime.org/content/nonviolent-protester-drone-wars-sentenced-federal-prison]
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