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NEWS RELEASE
27 January 2009
Contact Trinity Nuclear Abolitionists: 505 242 0497


DEFENDING NUCLEAR WEAPONS IN LOS ALAMOS COURTROOM



Trinity Nuclear Abolitionists will continue holding monthly prayer-actions at Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) in 2009. On Tuesday, January 27, 2009, the peace vigil is in front of the main entrance sign at the corner of Diamond and West Jemez in Los Alamos, NM, from 7:30 am until 8:30 am. Past monthly prayer-actions were similar, but this month focuses on LANL's persistent inconsistencies. Marcus Page, a member of Trinity Nuclear Abolitionists (TNA), previously had a mistrial last August, and he will go back to trial on March 31, 2009, because LANL is trying to use the courts to justify their improprieties.

This will be the eighth prayer-action since LANL security had abolitionists arrested last April, and the nineteenth since the monthly vigils began in 2007. Nuclear abolitionists come every month to publicly demonstrate against nuclearism, and security personnel threatened to have demonstrators arrested at least five times, but only once did LANL follow through with their threat to stop the vigil. Marcus Page says, “At the beginning they always told us they would arrest us if we didn't leave. They always backed down when we stood our ground. The first jury couldn't agree which side has more rights, so LANL wants a new jury to defend their immoral nuclear rights.”

On April 14, 2008, two members of TNA were arrested for praying at LANL in opposition to war taxes. They were part of a group of six who held vigil on the 14th and 15th of April. The two were interrupted while standing on Los Alamos Commerce and Development Corporation land, which houses Los Alamos National Security, LLC (LANS). LANS manages LANL is directly involved with the University of California. Both TNA members were charged with alleged trespass.

One defendant, Mike Butler, made a plea bargain in September 2008, and was later exonerated. The other defendant, Marcus Page, is being re-tried on March 31, 2009 at the behest of the Department of Energy for for alleged trespassing while praying at Los Alamos, NM. The prior trial utilized a jury which failed to reach consensus on guilt or innocence.

TNA is always nonviolent, peaceful and playful. TNA holds the position that national, local and international crimes are being committed by LANL employees on-site. TNA believes that loving enemies (rather than developing bombs) brings about the highest quality of security, and therefore calls for nuclear disarmament along with active rebuilding of a peaceful infrastructure in the USA.

LANL is a facility of the Department of Energy (DoE). TNA is opposed to the missions and visions of LANS, LANL and the DoE. TNA is committed to the goodness of their employees, yet decries their works of war and nuclear barbarism.