Antiwar activist Sister Carol Gilbert, released after serving a 33-month sentence for a Plowshares disarmament action, became friends at Alderson Federal Prison with another high-profile prisoner, Martha Stewart. Sister Gilbert was interviewed on Democracy Now! Friday:
AMY GOODMAN: On the issue of Martha Stewart, since she could have such tremendous impact if she spoke out [on] prison conditions, did she express an opinion on the occupation in Iraq?
SISTER CAROL GILBERT [PHOTO]: Martha is totally against the war in Iraq. There’s no question about it. And I think we need to understand that Martha is still under house arrest right now, and so, she still is very limited by what she is allowed to do and not do by this government.
More below from the interview:
More about Martha from Sister Gilbert’s interview on Democracy Now! Friday:
SISTER CAROL GILBERT: I did come to know Martha very well, and I think she totally understands now the injustice of the system and hopefully will continue to speak out and work to see that the system really needs to collapse. We’re not even sure it can be reformed at this point.
More on the conditions of her parole, and the action that led to her imprisonment:
SISTER CAROL GILBERT: Thank you, Amy.
AMY GOODMAN: It’s good to have you with us. We played a clip when you came out of jail on Monday, but wanted to ask about the controversy around Jonah House and the questions that were raised about you being allowed to return to your home after you served out your prison sentence.
SISTER CAROL GILBERT: That’s correct, Amy. I understand I have two probation officers, one in Maryland and one in Colorado. The problem with Maryland is that they did not want me to return to Jonah House and be living with felons. And there’s the question of restitution.
And it’s clear that the war making continues, and I will not pay any money, any kind of restitution, and so therefore, my travel, it appears, at least for the next three years, could be that I cannot travel outside the State of Maryland.
We have done alternative restitution, in that we have collected in our names over $120,000 to all kinds of wonderful charitable organizations and social justice organizations, and each of us has made our own contribution to the work of the prison, in the sense that I made over 25 pairs of mittens and sweaters in that for the poor of Alderson. Whether or not the judge will accept that remains to be seen.
AMY GOODMAN: Can you explain briefly what it is you did?
SISTER CAROL GILBERT: On the morning of October 6, 2002, the three of us entered a Minuteman three missile silo in northern Colorado to inspect, expose and symbolically disarm this weapon. We were trying to prevent the war in Iraq and felt that under international law, we had a responsibility to try to draw attention and to show the world that these are our weapons of mass destruction and for that the government chose to charge us with felonies similar to a sabotage charge.
[……………………]
JUAN GONZALEZ [a DN! co-host]: And your feeling, having spent that time in jail, protesting the war, to find that it’s still going on, it’s still — it’s still, the resistance is stronger than ever, and the determination of President Bush to continue prosecuting this war seems to be stronger than ever?
SISTER CAROL GILBERT: Absolutely. Just, in fact, what I would say is even clearer to me is just as the war continues on the international front and the corruption of the corporations such as Halliburton, we have the same thing happening on the domestic scene, only in this country it’s the prisons and the corruption and the illegalities of Unicore, and so many things go on in the prisons. So we’ve got prisons in this country and war on the international scene, and both soldiers and prisoners are disposable people.
Visit Jonah House‘s Web site to learn more about Sister Gilbert and other prisoners of conscience.
