Nuns' bloody nuclear missile protest conviction upheld

A court in America has upheld the prison sentences for three pacifist nuns who used their own blood to deface a missile silo in northern Colorado in 2002.

The US Court of Appeals noted "the potential benefit of civil disobedience", but upheld the conviction of Jackie Hudson, Carol Gilbert and Ardeth Platte on charges of obstructing national defence and damaging government property.

The three-judge panel ruled the nuns disrupted military operations and national defence. The nuns knew, or should have known, that their protest against nuclear weapons was not a ”trivial intrusion on some obscure military facility”, the panel wrote.

Bill Sulzman, a spokesman for the nuns, said he was saddened and disappointed by the ruling.

Hudson, who was released from prison in March, said she was not surprised by the ruling.

She said the protest was an act of “civil resistance” to inform Americans their government was violating international treaties and other agreements by continuing to possess and threaten to use nuclear weapons.

Gilbert is scheduled to be released in May, and Platte in December.

After a jury trial in 2002, Hudson, Gilbert and Platte received prison sentences of 30 months, 33 months and 41 months respectively.

The nuns were arrested in October 2002 after they allegedly cut a chain link fence surrounding a Minuteman III missile silo in Weld County. They then used baby bottles to dispense their own blood in the shape of a cross on the silo, the appeals court ruling said.

The nuns are members of the Dominican Sisters order in Grand Rapids, Michigan.