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The Saint Patrick's Day Four (also, The Saint Patrick's Four, or SP4) are four American peace activists of Irish Catholic heritage who poured their own blood on the walls, posters, windows, and a US flag at a military recruiting center to protest the United States' impending invasion of Iraq. [1] Peter De Mott, Daniel Burns, Teresa Grady, and Clare Grady each were members of the Ithaca Catholic Worker community, which teaches that Christians should practice non-violence and devote their lives to service of others. They each served between four and six months in federal prison for their action on Saint Patrick's Day, March 17, 2003, in Lansing, New York, near Ithaca where they reside.
Their first trial on state trespass charges, held in Ithaca, ended in a mistrial due to a hung jury.
The four activists were then retried on federal charges in Binghamton, generally considered to be a more conservative area where obtaining a conviction would be easier. However, local activists staged a massive protest outside the courthouse each day of the trial, and organized a six-day Citizen's Tribunal on Iraq (modeled after the World Tribunal on Iraq), featuring many internationally known speakers.
The four defended themselves pro se, but were assisted by a team of attorneys, such as William P. Quigley. [2] Although they were cleared of the most serious charges, they were convicted of misdemeanor charges of damage to government property and entering a military station for an unlawful purpose.
Daniel Burns was born in 1963 the tenth of twelve children of a former mayor of Binghamton, NY. He worked for twenty years in the film industry, and is a member of the Directors Guild of America. He has traveled to Iraq and to Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, as part of a delegation from Christian Peacemaker Teams. Some of his siblings perform as The Burns Sisters.
Teresa Grady was born in 1965. She worked as a dance instructor, and as a licensed massage therapist with a private practice. She is a founding member of the Ithaca Catholic Worker community after working with a similar community in San Jose, CA. It was there that Teresa says she began to understand the connection between local poverty and global war-making. Fluent in Spanish, Teresa also works to assist refugees from Latin America. Along with Burns and her sister Clare, she visited Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, in 2005 and attempted to gain access to the U.S. military base there to protest the treatment of the detainees, many held without charges. [3] [4]
Clare Grady was born in 1958, and has worked as a kitchen coordinator at Loaves and Fishes Community Kitchen for seventeen years. In addition to belonging to the Ithaca Catholic Worker community, she also belongs to the Atlantic Life Community, Phillip and his brother Daniel Berrigan being notable members. She is married to Paul Sayvetz, and has two daughters. Clare and Teresa are daughters of John Peter Grady, a peace activist, who as one of the Camden 28, broke into a local draft board and destroyed records. [5] [6]
Peter De Mott was born in 1947 and died in 2009. He served in the Vietnam War as a United States Marine and later served in Turkey as a U. S. Army translator. [7] During this time he developed strong anti-war beliefs, and joined the Catholic Worker Movement in 1979, with a focus on addressing the causes of poverty, unemployment and homelessness. In 2003, he traveled to Iraq as part of a Christian Peacemaker Team. He was married to Ellen Grady (sister of Clare and Teresa), and they had four daughters.
On October 24, 2019, Clare Grady was convicted on four counts in federal court in Brunswick, Georgia for entering and symbolically nonviolently disarming the Trident submarine's nuclear weapons. On April 4, 2018, Grady with six other people entered the base and performed symbolic acts of disarmament. Other defendants were Elizabeth McAlister, Martha Hennessy (granddaughter of the founder of the Catholic Worker, Dorothy Day), Carmen Trotta, Patrick O’Neill, Fr. Steve Kelly, SJ, and Mark Colville. [8] In November 2020 two of the seven activists were sentenced, with Clare Grady receiving a prison sentence of one year and one day and Carmen Trotta receiving a prison sentence of 14 months. The defendants were also ordered to pay a share of the $33,503.51 it cost to clean and repair the damage done. [9]
In 2006 documentary film about the activists titled The trial of the St. Patrick's four was made by Adolfo Doring [10]
Philip Francis Berrigan, SSJ was an American peace activist and Catholic priest with the Josephites. He engaged in nonviolent, civil disobedience in the cause of peace and nuclear disarmament and was often arrested.
Tariq Aziz was an Iraqi politician who served as Deputy Prime Minister, Minister of Foreign Affairs and a close advisor of President Saddam Hussein. Their association began in the 1950s when both were activists for the then-banned Arab Socialist Ba'ath Party. He was both an Arab nationalist and a member of the Chaldean Catholic Church.
Ahmed Khalfan Ghailani is a Tanzanian conspirator of the al-Qaeda terrorist organization convicted for his role in the bombing of embassies in Kenya and Tanzania. He was indicted in the United States as a participant in the 1998 U.S. embassy bombings. He was on the FBI Most Wanted Terrorists list from its inception in October 2001. In 2004, he was captured and detained by Pakistani forces in a joint operation with the United States, and was held until June 9, 2009, at Guantanamo Bay detention camp; one of 14 Guantanamo detainees who had previously been held at secret locations abroad. According to The Washington Post, Ghailani told military officers he is contrite and claimed to be an exploited victim of al-Qaeda operatives.
The Plowshares movement is an anti-nuclear weapons and Christian pacifist movement that advocates active resistance to war. The group often practices a form of protest that involves the damaging of weapons and military property. The movement gained notoriety in the early 1980s when several members damaged nuclear warhead nose cones and were subsequently convicted. The name refers to the text of prophet Isaiah who said that swords shall be beaten into plowshares.
Ciaron O'Reilly is an Australian anti-war campaigner, peace protester, social justice campaigner and Catholic Worker, having been "engaged in ... protests, acts of civil disobedience and trials in England, Ireland, and his native Australia." He has also become one of the most visible and active practical and theoretical exponents of the ideas of Christian anarchism, arguing that this "'is not an attempt to synthesise two systems of thought' that are hopelessly incompatible, but rather 'a realisation that the premise of anarchism is inherent in Christianity and the message of the Gospels.'"
Jim Dowling is a self-declared human rights, free speech and anti-war activist from Brisbane, Australia. Together with fellow Catholic Worker activists, Ciaron O'Reilly and Angela Jones, he founded the West End Catholic Worker community in Brisbane during the 1980s. He currently resides at Peter Maurin Farm with his wife, Anne Rampa, and seven children.
Clare Grady is an American peace activist and a member of the Catholic Worker and the Plowshares movements. She advocated against use of cruise missiles for first-strike capability in the 1983 Griffiss Plowshares action. In the process of the protest, military equipment was damaged and splattered with blood. In 2003, she and three others made up The Saint Patrick's Day Four, who conducted a protest action at a military recruiting center in Lansing, New York against the impending Iraq War. She participated in the Kings Bay Plowshares action on April 4, 2018, which resulted in a conviction and sentence of one year and a day.
Carl K. Kabat was an American priest of the Catholic religious order Missionary Oblates of Mary Immaculate, best known for his eccentric, nonviolent protests against nuclear weapons. He served more than 17 years total in prison over his lifetime.
Eve Leona Tetaz was an American public school teacher and peace and justice activist from Washington, D.C. She was arrested 11 times in 2007 for nonviolent civil resistance during protests against the war and occupation of Iraq. Tetaz was arrested approximately a dozen times between 2008 and early 2010.
Elizabeth McAlister, also known as Liz McAlister, is an American peace activist and former nun of the Religious of the Sacred Heart of Mary. She married Philip Berrigan and was excommunicated from the Catholic Church. McAlister served prison time for nonviolent acts of civil disobedience.
The Camden 28 were a group of leftist, Catholic, anti-Vietnam War activists who in 1971 planned and executed a raid on a draft board in Camden, New Jersey, United States. The raid resulted in a high-profile criminal trial of the activists that was seen by many as a referendum on the Vietnam War and as an example of jury nullification.
Carmen Trotta is a pacifist and a member of the Catholic Worker Movement, Trotta has been an opponent of the war in Iraq. He has been an associate editor of the Catholic Worker, and has served on the executive committee of the War Resisters League.
2009 Iran poll protests trial refers to a series of trials conducted after 2009 Iranian presidential election. Over 140 defendants, including prominent politicians, academics and writers, were put on trial for participating in the 2009 Iranian election protests. The defendants were accused of orchestrating "colour revolution" in Iran, and "exposing cases of violations of human rights." The trials were widely condemned by world leaders both in Iran and worldwide as a "show trial" with coerced confessions.
In United States law, providing material support for terrorism is a crime prohibited by the USA PATRIOT Act and codified in title 18 of the United States Code, sections 2339A and 2339B. It applies primarily to groups designated as terrorists by the State Department. The four types of support described are "training," "expert advice or assistance," "service," and "personnel."
The United Arab Emirates Five are five activists who were arrested in April 2011 on charges of breaking United Arab Emirates law of defamation by insulting heads of state, namely UAE president Khalifa bin Zayed Al Nahyan, vice president Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, and Abu Dhabi crown prince Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan through running an anti-government website that express anti-government views.
The Bahrain health worker trials were a series of legal cases in which forty-eight doctors, nurses, and dentists faced charges for their actions during the Bahraini uprising of 2011. In September 2011, twenty of the health workers were convicted by a military court of felonies including "stockpiling weapons" and "plotting to overthrow the government". The remaining twenty-eight were charged with misdemeanors and tried separately. The following month, the felony sentences were overturned, and it was announced that the defendants would be retried by a civilian court. Retrials began in March 2012, but were postponed until June 14. Convictions against nine of the defendants were quashed and reduced against another nine. The Court of Cassation upheld the sentences against the remaining nine on 1 October.
The Bahrain Thirteen are thirteen Bahraini opposition leaders, rights activists, bloggers and Shia clerics arrested between 17 March and 9 April 2011 in connection with their role in the national uprising. In June 2011, they were tried by a special military court, the National Safety Court, and convicted of "setting up terror groups to topple the royal regime and change the constitution"; they received sentences ranging from two years to life in prison. A military appeal court upheld the sentences in September. The trial was "one of the most prominent" before the National Safety Court. A retrial in a civilian court was held in April 2012 but the accused were not released from prison. The sentences were upheld again on 4 September 2012. On 7 January 2013, the defendants lost their last chance of appeal when the Court of Cassation, Bahrain's top court upheld the sentences.
The Milwaukee Fourteen were fourteen peace activists who burned Selective Service records to protest the Vietnam War. On 24 September 1968, they entered Milwaukee's Brumder Building, site of nine Wisconsin draft boards, gathered up about 10,000 files, carried them to an open public space, and set them on fire with homemade napalm. The fourteen then remained at the site, singing and reading from the gospels of John and Luke as Milwaukee firemen and police officers arrived. The subsequent trial of twelve of the protestors became the first resistance trial in which the defendants chose to represent themselves. After a trial of eleven days, the defendants were each found guilty of theft, arson, and burglary.
The Kings Bay Plowshares are a group of seven Catholic peace activists who broke into the Kings Bay Naval Submarine Base and carried out a symbolic act of protest against nuclear weapons. The name of the action and the wider anti-nuclear Plowshares movement comes from the prophet Isaiah’s command to "beat swords into plowshares."
Martha Hennessy is an American Catholic peace activist and member of the Catholic Worker Movement co-founded by her grandmother, Dorothy Day.
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