Happy birthday today to Chelsea Manning as she spends her 29th birthday and seventh year in prison in a row as Christmas fast approahes..
Manning is a trans woman, ex-military analyst, who leaked hundreds of thousands of documents to Wikileaks exposing the truth about US, UK and other governments’ war crimes and corruption in Afghanistan, Haiti, Iraq, Israel and the Palestinian Authority, Peru, Venezuela who received a 35 year prison sentence in July 2013 for violations of the Espionage Act, after making public, the largest set of classified documents ever leaked.
Chelsea's mother, Susan Fox, was from Haverfordwest and met his American serviceman father while he was stationed at the nearby Cawdor Barracks. Chelsea returned to Wales with his mother, after his parents were divorced and attended the Tasker Millward secondary school in Haverfordwest.
Chelsea needs our support urgently,she has twice tried to commit suicide in prison, the second time after being thrown into solitary confinement for her first suicide attempt. One of her lawyers, Chase Strangio said: “She has repeatedly been punished for trying to survive and now is being repeatedly punished for trying to die.”
We must send a strong message to the US military and Obama that their torture of Chelsea must stop. We must get her out. Chelsea is part pf a great movement of thousands of whistleblowers who have revealed abuses and demanded their rights. In the face of everything, Chelsea engages with the world, models accountability, transparency and camaraderie, and imagines a more just future. Even as she is punished when she fights to live or chooses to try to die — Chelsea dares to claim her truth. She does not give up or give in and we are all better for it.From prison Chelsea has written against police killing young people of colour in the US and in support of immigrants and refugess, including queer and trans people.
For the past 6 years , every times she has come under threat , people in many countries have come together and organised vigils and protests.Petitions have reached over 100,000 signatures in a matter of days. Chelsea is now appealing to Obama "to commute her sentence to time served." https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/petition/commute-chelsea-mannings-sentence-time-served-1
A surge of tens of thousands of supporters pushed this WhiteHouse.gov petition for Chelsea over the 100,000 finish line as the December 14th deadline neared. Now, we're waiting for the White House to respond to our petition. In just over a month, President Obama will leave office turning over the government to a Trump administration. Before he does, he has a chance to free Chelsea, to commute her sentence, and to,in her own words, give her “a first chance to live … life outside the USDB as the person [she] was born to be.”
Read Chelsea's moving statement and the letters of support from Daniel Ellberg, Glen Greenwald, and David Morris here:-
.https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/3217536-Chelsea-Manning-Commutation-Application.html
Donations to her legal fund are also needed :- https://www.chelseamanning.org/press/chelsea-manning-defense-fund
And you can write to Chelsea here :-
Chelsea E.Manning 89289
1300 North Warehouse Road
Fort Leavenworth,
Kansas
66027-2304
Her fight is ours, because she has helped us wake up to stand up for our rights and justice.Join me in wishing Chelsea a happy birthday and calling on President Obama to free her.
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