WASHINGTON - January 30 - The week after a military jury in Colorado decided not to jail an Army interrogator even after they found him guilty of negligent homicide in the torture and killing of an Iraqi detainee, a federal judge in Columbus, Georgia is sentencing nonviolent activists to federal prison.

This morning, Judge G. Mallon Faircloth sentenced six human rights advocates, including an 81-year-old retired man, to between one and three months in prison; five of those individuals were also fined $500. Twenty-six people still face charges, and trials are expected to continue for several days. Each person faces a maximum sentence of six months in prison and a $5,000 fine.

The 32 defendants, ranging in age from 19 to 81, are charged with trespass after peacefully walking onto the Fort Benning military base in protest of a controversial Army training school located there. Those arrested were among 19,000 who gathered in November of 2005 outside the gates of Fort Benning to demand a dramatic shift in U.S. foreign policy and the closure of the controversial U.S. Army's School of the Americas, now called the Western Hemisphere Institute of Security Cooperation (SOA/ WHINSEC).

"I have written hundreds of letters to the editor, met with many U.S. officials, and helped to found three human rights organizations," said defendant GAIL PHARES, 66, of North Carolina, on the steps of the U.S. Courthouse this morning. "In my 40 years of experience in Latin America, I've witnessed a number of patterns repeated over and over which trace death, torture and suffering back to troops trained in counter-insurgency warfare by the U.S. military, many of whom were trained at the School of the Americas."

The SOA/ WHINSEC made headlines in 1996 when the Pentagon released training manuals used at the school that advocated torture, extortion and execution. Despite this admission and hundreds of documented human rights abuses connected to soldiers trained at the school, no independent investigation into the facility has ever taken place. New research confirms that the school continues to support known human rights abusers. Despite having been investigated by the United Nations for ordering the shooting of 16 indigenous peasants in El Salvador, Col. Francisco del Cid Diaz returned to SOA/ WHINSEC in 2003.

Judge Faircloth is known for handing down stiff sentences to opponents of the SOA/ WHINSEC. Since protests against the SOA/ WHINSEC began more than a decade ago, 183 people have served a total of over 81 years in prison for engaging in nonviolent resistance in a broad-based campaign to close the school.

The movement to close the SOA/ WHINSEC continues to grow. In 2005, Rep. Jim McGovern (D-MA) introduced HR 1217, a bill to suspend operations at WHINSEC and to investigate the development and use of the "torture manuals." The bill currently has 123 bipartisan co-sponsors.

"People speaking out for justice and accountability will most likely be sent to prison this week," said FR. ROY BOURGEOIS, founder of SOA Watch, "while the SOA and its graduates continue to operate outside a system of real accountability."

== ADJUDICATED DEFENDANTS ==
* * * Interviews Available * * *

SENTENCED TO ONE MONTH IN PRISON, $500 FINE:
Anika Cunningham, 26, Bowling Green, Ohio

SENTENCED TO TWO MONTHS IN PRISON, NO FINE:
Delmar Schwaller, 81, Appleton, Wisconsin

SENTENCED TO TWO MONTHS IN PRISON, $500 FINE:
Judith Ruland, 47, Springfield, Massachusetts
Sam Foster, 70, Minneapolis, Minnesota

SENTENCED TO THREE MONTHS IN PRISON, $500 FINE:
Donte Smith, 19, Washington, DC
Fred Brancel, 79, Madison, Wisconsin

== DEFENDANTS AWAITING TRIAL ==
(listed in order of state)

Sarah Harper, 36, Emeryville, California
Dorothy Parker, 76, Chico, California
Cheryl Sommers, 68, Berkeley, California
David Sylvester, 54, Oakland, California
Fr. Louis Vitale, 73, San Francisco, California
Joanne Cowan, 56, Boulder, Colorado
Ken Crowley, Washington, DC
Buddy Bell, 23, Chicago, Illinois
Fr. Jerome Zawada, 68, Cedar Lake, Indiana
Michael Gayman, 26, Davenport, Iowa
Rita Hohenshell, 81, Des Moines, Iowa
Stephen Clemens, 55, Minneapolis, Minnesota
Jamie Walters, 41, Columbia, Missouri
Robert Call, 72, Hasbrouck Heights, New Jersey
Frank Woolever, 72, Syracuse, New York
Linda Mashburn, 63, Brevard, North Carolina
Gail Phares, 66, Raleigh, North Carolina
Priscilla Treska, 66, Cleveland, Ohio
Joe DeRaymond, 55, Freemansburg, Pennsylvania
Edward "Naed" Smith, 38, Harrisburg, Pennsylvania
Mary Dennis Lentsch, 69, Oak Ridge, Tennessee
Robin Lloyd, 67, Burlington, Vermont
Scott Dempsky, 30, Denmark, Wisconsin
Jane Hosking, 37, Luck, Wisconsin
John LaForge, 41, Luck, Wisconsin

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