For Immediate Release:
(Interviews available)
Ithaca, NY On Wednesday, February 26th, Ellen Grady will go on trial in Syracuse Federal Court at 100 South Clinton St., Syracuse, NY 13261 as she was arrested in November while demanding an end of illegal US arms sales to Israel for a year long genocide in Gaza. Trial begins at 10 am. Some supporters will vigil at 9:30 am for half–hour before going into court. Grady was charged with “unreasonable obstruction of an entrance.”
Ellen and nine others of the Berrigan Collective sat in the lobby of the Syracuse Federal Building housing Senators Schumer and Gillibrand’s offices calling on the senators to stop funding Israel’s year of genocide. Ellen was the only one arrested. Among possible witnesses are people who resigned from the State Departmentand the Department of the Interior because of the Biden administration’s violation of six laws prohibiting the US from sending weapons to a country committing war crimes and genocide.
On Friday, November 15th, 2024, members of the Berrigan Collective, based in Ithaca, NY, with other upstate peace activists, went to the Syracuse Federal Building to ask for an immediate meeting with staff in the offices of New York’s US Senators Schumer and Gillibrand to “exercise our right to petition the government for a redress of grievances.” They wished to “impress upon the Senators the urgency of the impending vote (in 3 business days) to cut off offensive weapons for Israel’s genocide and ethnic cleansing of the Palestinian and Lebanese peoples.” They were specificallyasking the Senators to support the Senate Joint Resolutions of Disapproval that would block the sale of U.S. weaponry to Israel.
Earlier last fall Senators Bernie Sanders (VT), Peter Welch (VT), Jeff Merkley (OR), and Brian Schatz (HI) introduced Joint Resolutions of Disapproval to stop a $20 billion weapons shipment approved by the Biden administration. “There is a mountain of documentary evidence” that Israel uses US weapons to violate the law, Sanders said.
When the nine activists were denied entry to go upstairs to meet with Senators’ staff they staged a sit-in in the security checkpoint area of the building without blocking people from their business in the building. Part of the activist’s statement read “It is against US law to send a single weapon to any country grossly violating human rights. 61% of Americans say they want to cut off weapons to Israel. Our tax dollars must not be used for another illegal, immoral weapon giveaway to Israel!” The nine said they were there to implore the Senators to uphold the law by voting in favor of the impending legislation.
After about an hour the Department of Homeland Security police removed the nine from the lobby, carried them out of the building and deposited them on the sidewalk. Some of the nine decided to block one of the the doorways of the building. Eventually, the DHS police arrested one of the group, Ellen Grady from Ithaca, and charged her with not following the order of the DHS and blocking a doorway. Grady was ticketed and released.
The group’s action was part of a nationwide effort that weekto urge Senators from across the nation to support the historic Joint Resolutions of Disapproval. The Senate voted down three business days after the witness.
Bernie Sanders has reintroduced the same resolutions this week.
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