Peace activist Cindy Sheehan, who emerged as one of the most vocal opponents of the Iraq war after her son was killed in the conflict, left a courthouse convicted of trespassing and redelivered the petitions that originally led to her legal trouble.
Sheehan and three other women were acquitted on Monday of disorderly conduct, resisting arrest and obstructing government administration but were convicted of trespassing for leading a protest across the street from the UN. They had faced up to a year in jail if convicted of all counts.
A judge sentenced them to conditional discharge, which means they will not face any punishment as long as they do not get arrested in the next six months. The judge also ordered them to pay US$95 in court surcharges.
"We should have just gotten a desk appearance ticket, but they piled on our charges so we had to stay all night in [jail] that night," Sheehan said after the verdict. "Twenty-five soldiers were killed last week while we were in court wasting our time."
Sheehan and about 100 other members of a group called Global Exchange were rebuffed last March when they attempted to take a petition with some 72,000 signatures to the US Mission's headquarters near the UN.
Sheehan and the defendants ignored police orders to leave and were reading the petition aloud on the sidewalk when police moved in. The women sat on the sidewalk and were carried to patrol wagons.
Prosecutors said they were arrested after ignoring police orders to disperse.
After the verdict, the women immediately left the courthouse and headed for the US Mission to redeliver the petitions and ask for an apology.
They were met in the lobby of the building by Richard Grenell, director of external affairs for the US Mission, and Peggy Kerry, the mission's liaison for non-governmental organizations and sister of Senator John Kerry, a Massachusetts Democrat and former presidential candidate.
Grenell said the document he accepted was 1 1/2 pages, double-spaced and contained 32 names signed with an aqua blue marker. He said they presented this to him after apparently being unable to find the petition that the women had said contained some 72,000 signatures.
In explaining why he accepted a document from the group this time around, Grenell said, "We accept petitions every single day, even without an appointment. What we don't do is accept them in front of a staged media event."
Sheehan, 49, of Vacaville, California, lost her 24-year-old son Casey in Iraq in April 2004. She has since drawn international attention after camping outside President Bush's Texas ranch to protest the war.
THE ‘MONSTER’: The Philippines on Saturday sent a vessel to confront a 12,000-tonne Chinese ship that had entered its exclusive economic zone The Philippines yesterday said it deployed a coast guard ship to challenge Chinese patrol boats attempting to “alter the existing status quo” of the disputed South China Sea. Philippine Coast Guard spokesman Commodore Jay Tarriela said Chinese patrol ships had this year come as close as 60 nautical miles (111km) west of the main Philippine island of Luzon. “Their goal is to normalize such deployments, and if these actions go unnoticed and unchallenged, it will enable them to alter the existing status quo,” he said in a statement. He later told reporters that Manila had deployed a coast guard ship to the area
A group of Uyghur men who were detained in Thailand more than one decade ago said that the Thai government is preparing to deport them to China, alarming activists and family members who say the men are at risk of abuse and torture if they are sent back. Forty-three Uyghur men held in Bangkok made a public appeal to halt what they called an imminent threat of deportation. “We could be imprisoned and we might even lose our lives,” the letter said. “We urgently appeal to all international organizations and countries concerned with human rights to intervene immediately to save us from
RISING TENSIONS: The nations’ three leaders discussed China’s ‘dangerous and unlawful behavior in the South China Sea,’ and agreed on the importance of continued coordination Japan, the Philippines and the US vowed to further deepen cooperation under a trilateral arrangement in the face of rising tensions in Asia’s waters, the three nations said following a call among their leaders. Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba, Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr and outgoing US President Joe Biden met via videoconference on Monday morning. Marcos’ communications office said the leaders “agreed to enhance and deepen economic, maritime and technology cooperation.” The call followed a first-of-its-kind summit meeting of Marcos, Biden and then-Japanese prime minister Fumio Kishida in Washington in April last year that led to a vow to uphold international
US president-elect Donald Trump is not typically known for his calm or reserve, but in a craftsman’s workshop in rural China he sits in divine contemplation. Cross-legged with his eyes half-closed in a pose evoking the Buddha, this porcelain version of the divisive US leader-in-waiting is the work of designer and sculptor Hong Jinshi (洪金世). The Zen-like figures — which Hong sells for between 999 and 20,000 yuan (US$136 to US$2,728) depending on their size — first went viral in 2021 on the e-commerce platform Taobao, attracting national headlines. Ahead of the real-estate magnate’s inauguration for a second term on Monday next week,
RSS