Oak Ridge Today

Three years after break-in, protesters return to Y-12

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Michael Walli, Megan Rice, and Greg Boertje-Obed at Y-12

The three protesters who broke into the Y-12 National Security Complex and vandalized a uranium storage building three years ago returned to the nuclear weapons plant during a march in Oak Ridge on Saturday. The three protesters—from left, they are Michael Walli, Megan Rice, and Greg Boertje-Obed—object to nuclear weapons and the planned Uranium Processing Facility. Here they are pictured on Scarboro Road across from Y-12. (Photo by John Huotari/Oak Ridge Today)

 

Note: This story was last updated at 8:30 a.m. August 9.

The three protesters who broke into the Y-12 National Security Complex and vandalized a uranium storage building three years ago returned to the nuclear weapons plant during a march in Oak Ridge on Saturday.

The march and rally were organized by the Oak Ridge Environmental Peace Alliance as part of a series of events that commemorate the 70th anniversary of the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan, near the end of World War II. Uranium for the first bomb, the Little Boy atomic bomb that was dropped over Hiroshima on August 6, 1945, was enriched at Y-12.

The three protesters—Greg Boertje-Obed, Megan Rice, and Michael Walli—were convicted on two felony charges on May 8, 2013, in U.S. District Court in Knoxville. But their conviction on the more serious felony sabotage charge was overturned two years later, on May 8, 2015, by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit in Cincinnati. Boertje-Obed, Rice, and Walli were released on May 16 and have a re-sentencing hearing on September 15 in Knoxville. [Read more…]

Three Y-12 protesters will discuss Oak Ridge action in first public reunion since prison

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Y-12 Plowshares Protesters

Pictured above are the three anti-nuclear weapons protesters who broke into the Y-12 National Security Complex on July 28, 2012, and vandalized a uranium storage building. From left, they are Michael Walli, Megan Rice, and Greg Boertje-Obed. (File photo by John Huotari/Oak Ridge Today)

 

The three protesters who broke into the Y-12 National Security Complex three years ago and vandalized the Highly Enriched Uranium Materials Facility will discuss their Oak Ridge action in their first public reunion since they were released from prison in May.

Greg Boertje-Obed, Megan Rice, and Michael Walli will speak at the Church of the Savior (UCC) in Knoxville at 7 p.m. today (Friday, August 7).

Their sabotage conviction from the July 28, 2012, incident was overturned earlier this year. Since their release from prison in May, the three protesters, who are described as nonviolent peace activists, have appeared on national and international news programs, organizers said. [Read more…]

NNSA celebrates five years of radiological alarm response training

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Last week was the fifth anniversary of the U.S. Department of Energy’s National Nuclear Security Administration’s Alarm Response Training program for local law enforcement and other critical first responders around the country. In the five years of providing this course, NNSA has trained more than 3,000 on-site radiation safety and security personnel, local law enforcement officers, and other first responders on how to respond to a security incident involving nuclear or radiological materials, a press release said.

“One of the greatest threats to national and global security is the danger of nuclear and radiological terrorism, and the Alarm Response Training program directly addresses this threat,” said NNSA Deputy Administrator for Defense Nuclear Nonproliferation Anne Harrington. “We recognize that reducing the risk of radiological or nuclear terrorism requires a whole-of-community approach that brings together officials and responders from the federal, state, local, and facility levels. NNSA is able to utilize its unique expertise and technical resources to partner with local communities and other agencies to make our cities safer here and around the world.” [Read more…]

Guest column: U.S. Marshals place ‘Cone of Silence’ over Sr. Megan Rice

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Ralph Hutchison

Ralph Hutchison

By Oak Ridge Environmental Peace Alliance

The U.S. Marshals have placed a “cone of silence” over Sister Megan Rice, the 83-year-old defendant in the Transform Now Plowshares action who is being held in jail in Knoxville awaiting her sentencing on Tuesday, Jan. 28, in federal court in Knoxville on charges of sabotage and depredation of federal property. Her actual crime was embarrassing the federal government, along with Greg Boertje-Obed and Michael Walli, by sneaking into the nation’s ultra-secure Y-12 Nuclear Weapons Complex in Oak Ridge and painting peace slogans and pouring blood on the side of a warehouse that stores hundreds of tons of weapons-grade highly enriched uranium.

She has been in jail since a jury delivered a guilty verdict on the trumped-up charges in May 2013.

On Sunday, Jan. 26, Megan called local supporters to report that a phone interview that had been arranged with BBC-London had suddeny been denied. “They were so helpful here at the jail yesterday with making arrangements for the call,” she said, “and then tonight the woman was loud and rude and told me there would be no call. The U.S. Marshals were not allowing it.” [Read more…]

Judge says prosecution against Y-12 protesters not selective, vindictive

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A federal judge on Tuesday dismissed claims by three anti-nuclear weapons activists who broke into the Y-12 National Security Complex in July that a so-called sabotage charge filed against them in December was the result of vindictive and selective prosecution.

The defendants had asked the U.S. District Court in Knoxville to dismiss that charge, which carries a potential prison sentence of up to 20 years. They alleged government prosecutors sought the new charge because they had earlier refused to plead guilty to less serious charges. [Read more…]

Y-12 protesters can’t use necessity, Nuremberg defenses at Tuesday trial

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Y-12 Plowshares Protesters

Pictured above are the three anti-nuclear weapons protesters who broke into the Y-12 National Security Complex on July 28. From left, they are Michael Walli, Megan Rice, and Greg Boertje-Obed.

The three protesters accused of sneaking into the Y-12 National Security Complex and vandalizing a uranium storage building in July will not be able to argue during their trial next week that they violated federal laws in order to achieve a greater good, a judge said.

It’s what is known as a necessity defense, and it only applies in rare situations, U.S. District Judge Amul R. Thapar said in an opinion and order filed Tuesday. It allows a defendant to avoid a conviction even when the government has proven all the elements of an offense.

Thapar said the three anti-nuclear weapons activists—Greg Boertje-Obed, Megan Rice, and Michael Walli—did not have any evidence to establish three of the four required elements of the necessity defense, including a “reasonable fear of death or serious bodily injury due to a present, imminent, and unlawful threat.”

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Y-12 protesters ask court to dismiss sabotage charges

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Transform Now Plowshares

The three anti-nuclear weapons activists pictured above allegedly cut through fences and vandalized a high-security building at the Y-12 National Security Complex in July and now face federal charges of property destruction, property depredation, and injuring national defense premises. From left to right the three are Michael R. Walli, Megan Rice, and Greg Boertje-Obed. (Submitted photo)

In one of a series of motions last week, the three protesters who broke into the Y-12 National Security Complex on July 28 asked a federal court to dismiss the new sabotage charges filed against them in December.

Attorneys for the protesters—anti-nuclear weapons activists Greg Boertje-Obed, Megan Rice, and Michael R. Walli—said the new charges, which could add up to 20 years in prison, are unconstitutional, vindictive, and selective. They said the new charges were brought because the defendants earlier refused to plead guilty to less serious crimes.

In addition, the sabotage charges are rarely applied to civilian conduct and should not have been used in this case because Y-12 is a private contractor site and not a military base, the four attorneys for the protesters said in a motion to dismiss filed in U.S. District Court in Knoxville on Friday.

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