Seventy year old Nun who drew attention to our own
nuclear arsensal may face even more prison time.

     While we are trying to make others stop producing nuclear weapons, we are jailing elderly nuns for drawing attention to our own arsenal. Dominican Sisters Jackie Hudson, 70, Carol Gilbert, 58 and Ardeth Platte, 68 were convicted of sabotage and sentenced to 30, 33 and 41 months in prison for pointing out one of the US's 500 Minuteman III nuclear missiles in October 2002 . Jackie Hudson will be released March 4, 2005. 

      Friends and lawyers say she should not be forced to go back to prison for offering a reasonable, non-violent solution to the nuclear weapons problem.  The hammer that came down too hard was not from the nuns tapping symbolically on the 110 ton concrete missile silo cover but from the justice department. It seems the justice department's overzealous prosecution of the nuns was not directed to protect us from terrorism but from any questionning of our own military might.

     The Sisters also expect very soon a ruling from the 10th Circuit on whether their sabotage convictions will be reversed. "Surely we all understand that any threat or use of any nuclear weapon is grotesquely immoral, illegal and criminal including ours. We stated a public truth, 'Here in Colorado is one of our 335 kiloton nuclear weapons threatening nuclear holocaust within 15 minutes.' We gave a simple illustration of how nuclear disarmament of all 15,000 nuclear weapons is possible, through good-faith, non-violent inspection, exposure and disarmament one weapon at a time. We acted because we thought we all know that non-violent nuclear disarmament is a universal obligation and essential for our common survival as human beings," said Sister Hudson . "

     Current US policy vastly increases nuclear proliferation and the danger of nuclear weapons being used. All of which underscores the need for the kind of symbolic acts performed by the Sisters, since everyone seems to be sleepwalking to Armageddon," said Peter Weiss of the Lawyers' Committee on Nuclear Policy and the Center for Constitutional Rights. 

Contact: Karol and Glen Milner 206 365 7865