By Arnie Alpert, Active with the Activists
Arnie Alpert spent decades as a community organizer/educator in NH movements for social justice and peace. Officially retired since 2020, he keeps his hands (and feet) in the activist world while writing about past and present social movements.
DOVER — In a packed Dover District Court hearing room after an emotional two-hour trial on Tuesday, five antiwar protesters were found guilty of criminal trespass for refusing to leave the office of Congressman Chris Pappas, who the group charges with complicity for mass killings and destruction of Gaza’s civilian infrastructure over the past year.
The group, which calls itself the “Mother’s Day Five” due to the timing of their civil disobedience, has pleaded for Pappas to respond to their pleas to stop U.S. aid for Israel, which in the aftermath of the October 7, 2023 terrorist attacks has killed tens of thousands of Palestinian civilians, blocked delivery of humanitarian aid, and demolished much of the Gaza’s health, education, and housing infrastructure.
Peace vigils organized by the NH Coalition for a Just Peace in the Middle East outside Pappas’ Dover office have taken place every other week since last fall. Each time, members of the group said, they have delivered to his staff documentation of the war’s catastrophic impact on Palestinian civilians, which they say has taken place in violation of U.S. and international law. Other than form letters, they said they have received no substantive response from the Congressman.
“When laws are being broken by our own government, what are citizens in a democracy supposed to do?” asked Amy Antonucci, one of the five defendants.
On May 10, the Friday before Mother’s Day, the group of five delivered a written statement calling for a ceasefire, distribution of humanitarian aid, and an end to U.S. military assistance to Israel “until Palestinians’ and Israelis’ equal human rights are upheld and ongoing abuses ended, as required by International and US laws.” Waiting for a response, they sat themselves down in a small waiting area outside a glassed-in office, where no staff people could be seen. There, they quietly conversed about their concerns, goals, and hopes until they were asked to leave shortly after 5 p.m. When they refused, a member of Pappas’ staff called the Dover Police to have them removed.
Read about the May 10 protest here.
The May 10 sit-in, where she was arrested, was the group’s 15th visit to the office, Antonucci said.
One by one, with about 70 supporters packed into the courtroom benches behind them, Antonucci and the other four explained to Judge Sawako Gardner what they did and why. The defendants all represented themselves.
Janet Zeller, a Concord resident who chairs the Peace with Justice Advocates Committee for the NH Conference of the United Church of Christ, went first. As she explained, the Foreign Assistance Act and the Conventional Arms Transfer Policy both prohibit delivery of arms to governments which restrict delivery of humanitarian aid. “By providing weapons to Israel, while Israel is impeding the transport or delivery of U.S. humanitarian assistance to the civilians in Gaza, the Congress and White House are violating those laws,” she said. “As a citizen, I cannot stand by and do nothing, while my own government officials continue to break these laws.”
“We must take the responsibility of ensuring our representatives hear and understand our recognition of the laws that are being broken, and seek their support to end those violations,” she said.
Janet Simmon of Laconia decried the use of U.S. tax dollars to provide weapons Israel uses in Gaza. “I am just so dismayed over this use of my tax dollars that I have tried and tried and tried, by emails, by phone calls, by visiting this office, by writing personal letters to get some response about this misuse of our tax money for bombing and destroying people’s homes and property,” she said. When she spoke briefly to Rep. Pappas at a Laconia festival, she recounted, he said nothing more than that everybody has a right to say what they think. “He may not agree with me, but it is his job to listen,” she said, and so far, there’s no evidence that he is, she said.
Em Friedrichs, a member of the Durham Town Council and who uses zie/zer pronouns, was visibly pregnant when zie was escorted out of Pappas’ office in May. Trying to contrast the care zie received when delivering zer daughter Ruby by C-section with the lack of anesthesia available to women in Gaza who need caesarians, zie tried to introduce photos as evidence. The prosecutor objected, but Friedrichs went on to tearfully describe the plight of women and children in Gaza.
Friedrichs’ own journey to the Congressman’s office began, in a sense, when the Durham Town Council was presented with a resolution drafted by local residents calling for a Gaza ceasefire. One of the speakers was a local high school student who wanted simply to read a list of names, “the names of infants under age one who had died from military operations or starvation in Gaza since October 8,” Friedrichs recalled. The student was given only five minutes of speaking time, and “this high schooler could not even finish the names of infants that started with ‘A’ a in those five minutes.” And that was six months ago. Durham’s congressman, Chris Pappas, has been unwilling to address their concerns, Friedrichs said.
The final defendant to testify was the Rev. David Grishaw-Jones, pastor of the Community Church of Durham and a member of the United Church of Christ’s nationwide Palestine Israel Network. He, too, explained that the U.S. has provided military support for Israel in violation of U.S. law and that Congressman Pappas has been unresponsive to the concerns of constituents. Grishaw-Jones went on to say that PACs associated with the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, a powerful lobbying group, have donated half a million dollars to Pappas’ campaigns and have had his ear all along. “We are dismissed as irrelevant. AIPAC gets access and influence. Human rights are marginalized and even dismissed. And war rages on,” Rev. Grishaw-Jones told Judge Gardner.
“The idea that our member of Congress has time and again voted against international law and in defiance of US law to support unimaginable violence, even genocide, in Gaza, is abhorrent to us,” he concluded. “And the fact that deadly U.S. policy is beholden to PACs unseen and often unacknowledged is just plain wrong. And this requires courage and action on the part of citizen leaders. Folks like the five of us. Despair is not an option; and genocide requires courage and resistance.”
The prosecutor, Meagan Gann, had no questions for the defendants.
Gann called only one witness, Sgt. David Collis, who explained the police had been summoned by Pappas’ staff to deal with people who refused to leave the office at closing time on May 10. Collis testified it was a “peaceful protest” and told me before the trial he had had a long conversation with the defendants about their reasons for being there. Collis explained the defendants were told they would be arrested if they insisted on remaining in the Central Street suite. When they didn’t leave, he said, he had pairs of officers escort them outside where they were issued summons for criminal trespass and ordered not to return to the interior of the Congressman’s office.
None of the defendants disputed his report.
The defendants had hoped to call witnesses to elaborate on the war’s impact on civilians, Israel’s violation of international law, and the violations of U.S. law committed in the provision of arms to a country that is blocking humanitarian assistance. They had also hoped to provide expert testimony on the power of nonviolent action to affect public policy. The prosecutor objected, stating that unless witnesses had factual testimony relevant to the arrests their expertise had no bearing on the case. The judge agreed with the prosecutor.
Left seated with the spectators/supporters in the courtroom were the would-be witnesses: Ayman Nijim, a Palestinian American with family members in Gaza; Will Hopkins, a member of Veterans for Peace; Bob Sanders, founder of a group of New Hampshire Jews who oppose Israel’s Gaza war; and Jamila Raqib, Executive Director of the Albert Einstein Institution, a research group which studies active nonviolence.
The defendants had also hoped to question Patrick Carroll of the Pappas staff, who had been present in the congressional office on the day of the arrests. But since they had failed to subpoena him and he was not present, that was not possible.
Judge Gardner did admit as evidence information about international law and a resolution adopted by the Durham Town Council calling for a Gaza war ceasefire and provision of humanitarian assistance in the territory.
When testimony wrapped up, Judge Gardner told the defendants she had listened carefully to their statements. “My job here today is to apply the laws to the facts that have been presented to the court,” she said.
“Having heard your testimony,” she continued, “it is evident that you are all passionate and dedicated to your cause for peace.” The judge stated her verdict was not a reflection on the issues the defendants raised in the courtroom or at the May sit-in, but “simply whether or not the state has satisfied their burden of proof beyond a reasonable doubt as to the elements of each charge.” With that, she found them each guilty of criminal trespassing.
Following a recommendation from the prosecutor, they were each fined $250 plus $60 in court fees with $150 suspended provided they do not re-offend in the coming year. The Mother’s Day Five are still barred from entering Pappas’ office, but are free to participate in the regular vigils held on the sidewalk.
“I do ask for you to consider where the harm really lies in this case,” Em Friedrichs told the judge, “and I ask you to use your power as a judge to consider that my actions on May 10 are not the source of harm here. The source of harm are the actions taken and not taken by our government, including Representative Pappas, enabling both crimes and an extreme humanitarian crisis by sending weapons to be used against civilians in Gaza, and for that reason, I ask for a sentence of community service.”
The judge agreed Friedrichs could perform community service in lieu of paying a fine, as long as the service is with a nonprofit organization unrelated to anti-war activism.
The defendants did not appear to be remorseful about the consequences of their actions on May 10. In her own defense, Amy Antonucci told Judge Gardner, “In New Hampshire, we do have a tradition of engagement of citizens going above and beyond just voting and letting our Reps make decisions. Durham is not home to an oil refinery because of activists. The Clamshell Alliance challenged nuclear power and stopped any new plants from being built after Seabrook. Granny D Haddock spent her 90s walking across the country and all around New Hampshire for campaign finance reform.”
“I have not enjoyed any of this, breaking laws, being arrested, going to court,” she said. “It’s very stressful, and is hard on my health. But I thought of the people I know in Palestine and in Israel and others around the world, what they go through, and I knew that I had to try as hard as I could to reach my Representative.”
Outside the courthouse after the trial, Antonucci pledged that demonstrations would continue as long as the war goes on and their messages are not reaching Congress through “normal, acceptable, polite channels.”
“We’re going to take some time, some of us are going to catch up on sleep, and then we’re going to be talking about what next,” she said, adding that another round of nonviolent action training would begin soon to equip other protesters with the skills and attitudes needed for peaceful acts of civil disobedience.
This week’s peace vigil will be outside Senator Jeanne Shaheen’s Dover office. The NH Coalition for a Just Peace in the Middle East will return to the sidewalk outside Rep. Pappas’ office next week.
Also Tuesday, Israel bombed a residential building in northern Gaza, killing dozens of civilians including many children. A State Department spokesperson called it “a horrifying incident.”
