Ground Zero Feature Articles
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NORTHWEST PREMIER
Conviction
... a documentary about three Dominican nuns convicted and sentenced to Federal Prison for their non-violent protest at a Minuteman III missile site in Northern Colorado. This 48-minute film evokes important conversations about the role of religion in politics, the role of nuclear weapons in national defense and the role of International Law in the Federal Courts. You are invited to welcome Sister Jackie Hudson back to Washington after completing her sentence in prison and to engage her and the filmmaker, Brenda Truelson Fox in a question and answer session following the film. Sunday, June 4, 2006
Sponsors: Fellowship of Reconciliation, Veterans for Peace, Global Network Against Weapons and Nuclear Power in Space, Women in Black, Unitarian Social Justice Committee, Friends Service Committee, Beyond Hiroshima, & Olympia Movement for Justice and Peace To order DVDs or learn more about this film, see
On October 6, 2002, Ardeth Platte, Carol Gilbert, and Jackie Hudson cut a chain link fence and entered an active nuclear missile silo site in rural northern Colorado. Declaring the Minuteman III a weapon of mass destruction, the nuns painted the site with six crosses in their own blood and tapped hammers against the silo lid and rusted tracks used to open the lid for a launch in a symbolic act of disarmament. One hour later, US military, FBI and local law enforcement authorities surrounded the women who were sitting on a 110-ton concrete nuclear warhead block, praying. The nuns surrendered peacefully and after being handcuffed on the ground for three hours, were eventually taken to the Clear Creek County jail where they remained for the next seven months awaiting trial and sentencing. The federal government sought conviction on charges of injury to, interference with and obstruction of national defense, as well as damage to government property, crimes that carry a maximum sentence of 30 years. On April 7th during the early war in Iraq, the three sisters were the first individuals to be convicted of sabotage in the US District Court of Denver since President Bush signed the USA Patriot Act into law. The conviction incited responses from all over the political and social map. From a rancher whose land houses one of the United States’ hundreds of nuclear missiles to peace activists who believe that the sisters are society’s only true watchdogs, to the President of the National Association of Evangelicals who likens the nuns to Timothy McVeigh. There is no one opinion and no easy common ground. The documentary Conviction examines legal, social and religious divisiveness in the wake of the events of September 11th. What forces are at play today that led a Colorado federal jury to convict three nuns of obstruction of national defense? Is the judicial system in this country undermining democracy or is it providing safeguards for a nation under siege? Are Ardeth Platte, Jackie Hudson and Carol Gilbert prophets or domestic terrorists? 2529 9th Street, Boulder Colorado 80304 720.252.7939 www.ztsp.org |
