Above Photo: Chris Knudson.
Killer Drone Base Blockaded to Oppose Remote-Controlled Killing of Humans.
Las Vegas, Nevada – Anti-drone activists, in Nevada for a week-long protest at a U.S. assassin drone base north of Las Vegas, continued their resistance on Wednesday morning, October 19 with a nonviolent blockade of the entrance road into Creech Air Force Base in Indian Springs. After nearly two hours, three protesters were arrested.
Dozens – maybe hundreds – of vehicles were stalled on the highway trying to enter the base. Protesters hope to motivate Air Force personnel involved in the U.S. drone program to follow their conscience and no longer participate.
Protesters held life-sized cardboard cut-outs of four of the seven children from the Ahmadi family who were killed by a U.S. drone attack in Kabul in August 2021, and held two signs that read: “A Call To Conscience” and “Can You See, You Are Murdering Me.”
Three elder women, including two grandmothers, were arrested after refusing to move out of the road when warned by police to do so. Denise Sellers, Toby Blomé and Edwina Vogan were detained for over 30 minutes, and then cited and released.
Thousands of unarmed civilians have been killed in U.S. drone strikes according to independent investigative NGOs, including hundreds of children.
“Assassination is illegal by both international and national laws,” said Toby Blomé, one of the organizers and arrestees. “By carrying these cardboard figures with the names and ages of some of the children killed (Ayat age 2; Malika, age 3; Armin, age 4; Farsad, age 10) it is our hope to memorialize and humanize the drone victims and to emphasize the tragic side of the secret, U.S. drone program that should never have been developed.”
Participants in the week-long protest – co-sponsored by CODEPINK, Women for Peace; Veterans for Peace; and Ban Killer Drones – are calling for a worldwide ban of all armed and militarized drones.