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Kathy Kelly, co-coordinator of Voices for Creative Nonviolence, planned to turn herself in at the federal prison camp in Lexington, Ky., today to begin serving a three month sentence for her involvement in a protest of drone warfare June 1 at Whiteman Air Force Base in Missouri.
Kelly is a long-time peace activist who led delegations to Iraq during the years of sanctions before the 2003 U.S. invasion. She was in Baghdad during the “shock and awe” campaign and spent a summer in Baghdad in neighborhoods left destitute by the sanctions and warfare.
She has made numerous trips to Afghanistan and Pakistan, organizing a young people’s non-violence group called Afghan Peace Volunteers, and recording and writing about the testimony of those whose families and friends have been killed in drone attacks.
Kelly was arrested when she accompanied other activists to the gates of Whiteman Air Force Base to deliver a loaf of bread and a letter to the commander of the base, which operates drones over Afghanistan, according to a release from Voices for Creative Nonviolence. She was tried and convicted in federal court in December.
