In 2013 the courageous Amrican activist. human rights heroine and US Army whistleblower Chelsea Manning was given a 35-year prison sentence after she had leaked more than 700,000 confidential US State Department and Pentagon documents, videos and diplomatic cables about the US wars in Iraq and Afghanistan to WikiLeaks. Mannings leak of military data was driven, she has said by 'love of country and a sense of duty for others;'
In the documents that would become known as the Iraq War Logs and the Afghanistan War Logs, Manning exposed the military's standing orders to ignore the many allegations of physical and sexual abuse and torture of detainees perpetrated by the Iraqi Security Forces. She exposed contractors trafficking children in Afghanistan, and many instances in both countries where large numbers of civilian casualties went conveniently unreported between 2004 and 2009.
Perhaps the most notorious of the releases was a US military video that WikiLeaks titled 'Collateral Murder'. It showed the indiscriminate slaying of up to eighteen people in Baghdad on 12 July, 2007. The footage, taken from an Apache helicopter gun-sight, showed the unprovoked slaying of a wounded Reuters journalist and his rescuers. A second Reuters staff member, employed as a driver and camera assistant, was also killed. Two young children, whose father was among those killed, were seriously wounded.
The video, together with the transcript of army exchanges during the indiscriminate US killings, shocked many around the world:
Let's shoot.
Light 'em all up.
Come on, fire!
Keep shoot, keep shoot. [keep shooting]
keep shoot.
keep shoot.
[...]
Oh, yeah, look at those dead bastards.
Nice.
Were it not for Chelsea Manning’s courageous disclosures, certain U.S.
military atrocities might have been kept secret. She brought to light secret U.S. drone strikes carried out in Yemen, as well
as the fact that Egypt's State Security Investigation Service, a wing
of the police force which has committed obscene human rights violations,
received training from the FBI. Her revelations were
also key to exposing U.S. approval of the 2009 coup against the elected
government in Honduras and U.S. dealings with dictators and oligarchs
across the Middle East, which helped spark the Arab Spring rebellions.
Prior to her arrest in 2010, Chelsea Manning wrote: “I want people to
see the truth, regardless of who they are. Because without information,
you cannot make informed decisions as a public.”
Manning, who’s now 31, spent a substantial amount of time in solitary confinement before her trial, in addition to years in prison afterward. She
publicly came out as transgender just after she was sentenced, and she
struggled with mental health while behind bars, resulting at one point
in another week of solitary confinement. While in prison, Manning twice attempted to commit
suicide.She was released in
2017, after her sentence was commuted by President Barack Obama, two
days before he left office following sustained pressure from activists.
In a move her defenders called "an outrageous government overreach and absolutely inhumane, on 8 March – International Women's Day – Manning was
once again jailed after she refused to testify against WikiLeaks, and
its founder Julian Assange, before a grand jury in Virginia, and was incarcerated in the Alexandria, VA federal detention center. Her imprisonment can extend through the term of the Grand Jury, possibly
18 months, and the U.S. courts could allow formation of future Grand
Juries, potentially jailing her again.
She said in a statement:
'I will not comply with this, or any other grand jury.'Imprisoning me for my refusal to answer questions
only subjects me to additional punishment for my repeatedly-stated
ethical objections to the grand jury system.'I will not participate in a secret process that I
morally object to, particularly one that has been used to entrap and
persecute activists for protected political speech.'
"She’s a very patriotic person. I know no one more patriotic, actually, willing to risk and even give her own freedom, her own life, in order to preserve our constitutional freedoms and the Constitution. I admired her then. I admire her now. And right now she’s refusing to take part in basically a conspiracy against press freedom in this country, led by the president of the United States and the secretary of state."
In an interview
last week with Dennis Bernstein on Radio KPFA, John Pilger described
the significance, and injustice, of the recent jailing of Chelsea
Manning. The irony of her being imprisoned on International Women's Day
was first noted, then Pilger pointed to the shameful silence from the
women's movement, and other human rights activists:
'Where are they [human rights activists] on Chelsea
Manning? Why were there only ten people outside the Court House? Where
is Amnesty International? Where are the women's groups? Where are the
LGBT groups? Where are the Pride people? Why aren't they massing in
support of Chelsea Manning? Instead I see Chelsea Manning's story
relegated in a sort of, "Oh well, that's almost inevitable this is going
to happen." But this [...] is the most significant act of principle; an
inspiration to all decent people; to democrats, to people who believe
in justice. So where are the groups who have been very loud in their
condemnation – rightly - of Donald Trump? Where are they? Why are we not
hearing from them?'
The U.S. District Court for Eastern Virginia is fooling itself if it
thinks locking up Manning will compel her to testify. She has bravely made it clear
that she has no interest in testifying in such a secretive setting. Her
only offense is an unwillingness to cooperate with the same government
that locked her up for exposing the kinds of horrors its military forces
perpetrated in Iraq and Afghanistan.Chelsea Manning is a political prisoner who is being used as an example, her imprisonment is cruel, punitive, criminal and totally unjustifiable. The White House wants to set a precedent for jailing whistle-blowers and journalists who publish information critical of the military and state apparatus. Even now, after her original sentence has been commuted, the state continues to pursue her and demands that she testify in secret hearings about events that she has already gone on the public record about . We must demand the immediate and unconditional release of Chelsea Manning. There will always be a welcome for here in Wales.
Sign petition: https://bit.ly/2F9qU2X
Write to her
Chelsea Elizabeth Manning, A0181426
William G. Truesdale Adult Detention Center
2001 Mill Road
Alexandria, VA 22314
She can NOT accept books or cards.
She can receive letters, as well as newspapers.
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