Hated Nation: Federal courtroom becomes healing balm

By Brenda Norrell,
 

The dialogue in a federal courtroom here today evolved into a healing balm, revealing a nation, the United States, that the world has grown weary of, and a growing number of aging Americans willing to serve time in prison to expose the cancer within.

Torture was again on trial in federal court today in Tucson. But in dialogue that surprised those that packed the courtroom, the healing remedy of grace and understanding were combined with wisdom and the spiritual foundation for a better world.

Two of the protesters of US torture arrived in court suffering from cold and sleep deprivation. Betsy Lamb and Franciscan Fr. Jerry Zawada, in prison awaiting trial, had spent the night in cold, bare holding cells. Those holding cells are where all inmates from Florence prisons wait all night before a court appearance. Dressed in thin prison clothes in a cell without a bed, there is only a cold, stone floor to lie on.
Mary Burton Riseley, in a wheelchair and sick with the flu, appeared with fellow defendants Lamb and Fr. Zawada.

Fr. Zawada, Lamb and Riseley went to Fort Huachuca on November 18, 2007 to hand out flyers with a message they had written to enlisted personnel and officers, and speak to them about interrogation training and the use of torture. After moving past temporary barricades at the Fort's main gate, they were stopped from going any further. They knelt down and were arrested.
 

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