Occupation Project in the News

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.