Anti-draft activist imprisoned, fined

Scan page 14

14 SOCIALIST ACTION OCTOBER 1987 The following article was sent to Socialist Action by the Committee Against Registration and the Draft (CARD) to inform our readers that Gillam Kerley, CARD's executive director, was just sentenced to three years in prison for refusing to register for the draft.

Zoltan Grossman is the acting executive director of CARD. The article has been abridged for space.

Anti-draft activist Gillam Kerley has begun serving a three-year prison term at the Leavenworth Federal Penitentiary in Kansas. He was sentenced and fined $10,000 for refusing to register for the draft.

In handing down the sentence--the harshest given a non-registrant since the Vietnam War--Judge John Shabaz gave an interesting justification, unrelated to the charge. He accused Gillam, as the executive director of the Committee Against Registration and the Draft (CARD), of "continuing criminal activities" in "aiding, abetting and encouraging" other draft resisters.

Kerley, 26, has been a law student and bookstore owner in Madison, Wis. In 1982 he was targeted for prosecution as one of 18 vocal non-registrants and entered a plea of "not guilty by reason of sanity."

As Kerley said recently in an interview from Leavenworth, "Given the nature of my offense, the manner in which I was selected for prosecution, and Judge Shabaz's justification for the severity of my sentence, there should be no question that I am being held as a political prisoner. What we are seeing, in this case and others, is the criminalization of political dissent."

Since President Carter reinstated draft registration in 1980, CARD has carried out educational campaigns aimed at draft-age youth. These campaigns do not "encourage" youths to break the draft laws, but encourage them to think about their various options.

test case Kerley's imprisonment comes at a critical time. The government has cut the rate of non-compliance with the draft from a million youth down to about 400,000 young men. This has been accomplished by sending warning letters to non-registrants and cutting off their access to federal student aid and job training..

This apparent success has led some politicians to call for a "compulsory national service program"--a euphemism for a civilian-military draft. Such prominent Democrats as Gary Hart, Bruce Babbitt, and Charles Robb have jumped on the draft bandwagon to defense" credentials.

Gillam Kerley is the only American in prison today for resisting draft registration.

Even his case officer at Leavenworth had to comment, "You got three years for that?"

The Campaign to Free Gillam Ferley has received endorsements from dozens of peace, civil liberties, and social-change activists, former political prisoners, and draft/military resisters from around the nation and the world. They see Gillam's release as a key to stopping the momentum toward a new draft.

¡uo1s0я • Boston:

Speaker: Ann Salmeron, member CASA.

• Chicago:

San Francisco:

"Why vote socialist?"

Speaker: Joseph Ryan, Socialist Friday, Oct. 30, 8 p.m.

"70th anniversary of Russian Speaker: Nat Weinstein, co-Nat'l Secretary, Friday, Nov. 13, 8 p.m.

Army Rm. 308, CARD is calling following courses of action:

• Write to Judge John Shabaz, 120 North Henry Street, Madison, WI 53703, protesting the severity of the sentence and asking that it be reduced. Send a copy to CARD Midwest Office which will forward it to Gillam.

• Send a tax-deductible contribution to the CARD Midwest office, 731 State Street, Madison, WI 53703. To volunteer other forms of help, call CARD at (608) 257-7562.

Action Revolutior Socialist Actio

Scan page 15

(A Prayer for the Dying. A film directed by Michael Hodges. Starring Mickey Rourke, Bob Hoskins, and "A Prayer for the Dying" is a new suspense thriller bound to stir up some controversy. The film stars IrishAmerican actor Mickey Rourke as Martin Fallon, a