FOUR CITIZEN ACTIVISTS ARRESTED OUTSIDE SEN. SCHUMER’S OFFICE AFTER DEMANDING AN END TO HIS SUPPORT FOR THE KILLER DRONE PROGRAM
Contacts: Malachy Kilbride 571 501-3729, Max Obuszewski 410 366-1637 or mobuszewski at Verizon.net, Joy First 608 239-4327
WHO: Members of the National Campaign for Nonviolent Resistance [NCNR] have been active in challenging U.S. invasions and attacks on Afghanistan, Iraq and other countries. Most recently, NCNR has been expressing a grave concern against the use of drone strikes to assassinate people in various countries. On October 22, five members of NCNR were convicted of trespass at the Central Intelligence Agency on June 29 while seeking a meeting to discuss drone strikes.
WHAT: As part of the CodePink Global Summit on Drones, citizen activists came to Washington to raise the issue of killer drone strikes. And about thirty of them went to Senator Chuck Schumer’s office in Washington, D.C. to urge him to renounce his pro-killer drone strikes position. While there, the citizen activists spoke with foreign policy staffer John Jones, recited the names of children killed by U.S. drone strikes, taped to the office walls photographs of drone victims and mourned the death and destruction.
Eventually four of the NCNR members stood outside his office and continued to read the names of child drone victims and chant for an end to the assassination program. Activists came from across the country from Wisconsin and north from New York State to protest the increasing use of killer drones. Capitol Police officers then arrested Elizabeth Adams from Western Massachusetts, JoAnne Lingle, Indianapolis, Richard Ochs, Baltimore, and Alice Sutter, New York City, and charged them with demonstrating inside a Senate Office Building.
Four arrested on Capital Hill today: Photos by Ted Majdosz. For more photos see here.
