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Veteran Jailed for Speaking Out
Via NY Transfer News Collective * All the News that Doesn't Fit
Earlier story:
"Vet for Peace on Trial Wednesday in Wash, DC" - Jan 8, 2008
http://blythe-systems.com/pipermail/nytr/Week-of-Mon-20080107/073865.html
sent by David Swanson - Jan 10, 2008
http://afterdowningstreet.org/node/29994
U.S. Military Veteran Jailed for Exercising Free Speech
By David Swanson, based on report from Malachy Kilbride
Mike Ferner was found guilty today in District of Columbia Superior
Court. He has just been sentenced.
Ferner was originally sentenced to 5 days incarceration suspended and 6
months unsupervised probation including a $100 fine and $50 to the
victims compensation fund.
He told the judge that he would not pay the fine and that his highest
civic duty was to protest as the Germans should have done against
Hitler. "Today we must speak out against the crimes of our government,"
Ferner said, according to Joy First who was in court in solidarity with
Ferner.
Ferner has been taken away by US Marshals to jail.
The judge vacated the sentence and gave him a new sentence of one night
in DC jail, First said.
Ferner is a national officer of Veterans For Peace.
Ferner, who served as a Navy Hospital Corpsman during the Viet Nam war,
was arrested September 20, in the the visitors' gallery of the U.S.
House of Representatives when he and another activist stood up and
loudly addressed the members of Congress, saying: "Funding the War is
Killing Our Troops!"
Ferner was arrested by Capitol Police and charged with disorderly
disturbing Congress, a charge that carries a maximum 6 months jail
sentence.
"The government says I was disturbing Congress, but that is not the
case," said Ferner, a freelance writer from Toledo, Ohio. "I stood up
in the House Gallery to sound an alarm, and you don't knock quietly on
the door when your neighbor's house is on fire. You pound and raise
your voice as if lives depend on it--and that is exactly what's
happening in Iraq. Thousands of lives are being lost, the war is
causing untold suffering, and Congress keeps throwing gasoline on the
flames."
"We have politely petitioned, called and written Congress to
demonstrate we want this war ended, and they keep voting more billions
for the war. Clearly we need to ring an alarm to get the point across
to these people so far removed from the consequences of their votes,"
Ferner concluded.
*
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