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UN Official: Manning Subjected to 'Cruel Treatment' by US Govt
"I believe Bradley Manning was subjected to cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment in the excessive and prolonged isolation he was put in during the eight months he was in Quantico," UN special rapporteur on torture Juan Ernesto Mendez told AFP on Monday .
US Army Private Bradley Manning is escorted away from his hearing at Fort Meade, Maryland, on February 23. US authorities' treatment of Manning was "cruel and degrading," the UN special rapporteur on torture Juan Ernesto Mendez said Monday. (AFP Photo/Mark Wilson) US Army Private Manning has been indicted by the US government on 22 counts, including 'aiding the enemy,' stemming from allegations that Manning was the source for hundreds of thousands of US diplomatic cables that were subsequently released by the whistleblower website, Wikileaks.
Agence France-Presse reports:
Mendez said that "fortunately" the alleged mistreatment ended when Manning was transferred from Quantico to another prison in Kansas.
"But the explanation I was given for those eight months was not convincing for me," he said, speaking on the sidelines of a UN Human Rights Council meeting in Geneva.
Jailed for more than a year and a half before his arraignment last month, Manning, 24, has complained of being placed in solitary confinement, of bullying by guards, and of being subjected to an ultra restrictive regime in Quantico. [...]
At his arraignment hearing at the Fort Meade army base on February 24, when he declined to enter a plea, Manning's civilian lawyer, David Coombs, said his client had been in confinement for 635 days.
Manning faces court martial later this year, accused of passing hundreds of thousands of military field reports from Iraq and Afghanistan and US diplomatic cables to WikiLeaks between November 2009 and May 2010, when he served as an intelligence analyst in Iraq.
The military documents shed light on civilian deaths, while the diplomatic cables sparked a firestorm by disclosing the private remarks of heads of state and candid observations by senior US officials.
The US government slammed the disclosure of the documents by WikiLeaks, saying it threatened national security and the lives of foreigners working with the military and US embassies.
WikiLeaks supporters view the site as a whistleblower that exposed US wrongdoing and see Manning as a political prisoner.
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30 Comments so far
Show Alllet's step it up to the Costner version of Robin Hood, fearless and with a huge band of Merrymen storm the citadel and free the kid.
Bradley is a hero, unquestioningly, a hero.
I have said this before, but let me repeat it for the lesser of two evils crowd that posts here. Obama moved to Indonesia around the age of 4 in 1965, with his mom and new step dad, Lolo Soetoro, a colonel in General Suharto's murderous Indonesian army that committed massive genocide.
As a child, Obama learned life from his murderous step-dad and his equally cold mother Stanley Ann, who worked for USAID, a known CIA front, for decades. Obama grew up with parents who killed other humans for a living. How would you expect him to turn out?
only cowards fear the Truth! good points, tomcarberry. thanks for the lesson of #44's early years. i guess growing up wrapped in a "security" blanket woven from fear and mistrust can only result in emotional and psychological damage--post traumatic stress disorder. a friend told me recently, "as thoroughly disgusted as i feel, i plan to vote for obama. who else? perhaps, freed from political games, once he faces no more elections to win or lose, he'll live up to the promise of those inspiring, impassioned speeches. and if he lets us down--i'll NEVER bother to vote again!" i told my younger son that 2012 may be the last time friend, carol holds her purple index finger high. people all around the world now experience a type of traumatic "crisis of faith" as governing bodies strike out against the very citizens they claim to defend . corporations, political parties and governments by definition create and thrive on adversity. when the goal of winning becomes more important than how one "plays the game" all hell breaks lose!
...and taken from a robert riversong comment in the chris hedges discussion:
yeah, those rank cowards who strut about in the most expensive costumes behind filed lines of costumed, idealistic young soldiers and the weak-kneed political puppets who masquerade behind "tuff talk" spread the dark energy of paranoiac fear of the “other” and call it security. as long as we the people look for salvation in one heroic political leader among fallible humanity, we set ourselves up for disappointment.
to bradley manning, julian assange, daniel ellsberg, rosa parks, chief joseph, titus silverback, rachal correy and millions less famous who found the strength of character, the Love of Truth, to rebuke the raging storm , rise above fear, i promise not to place you on a plastic pedestal to be worshipped from afar. let your deeds inspire each to find the hero within.
“we don’t need another hero”—but seven billion sure wouldn’t hurt.http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Rh9JGujCVg
I ask myself, what would I do to stop the wanton killing of innocents in Syria if I could and then I see that US Army Private Bradley Manning actually DID something to show that the US is equally responsible for such war crimes. When Britain's Prime Minister David Cameron says "the regime of Bashar al-Assad will eventually be held accountable for crimes against his people" we must not forget for a moment that the reason Braddley Manning is being tortured and prosecuted is that he, I and some other people around the world need to see the regimes of UK and USA held equally to account, not only for the sake of justice but to insure that this madness of violence against innocent civilians is stopped and if it does occur again at any time it will not be with impunity.
Braddley Manning is a hero, and the US, their lap dogs in the UK, and NATO have lost all credibility as they went to yet new and lower standards of criminality in war and such travesties of justice as for example the sentences and acquittals handed out for the Hiditha Massacre which make nonsense and hypocrisy of countries that pretends to represent "shared values, freedom, justice and the rule of law".
Braddley Manning has shown by his individual bravery that the US is run by an administration of thugs and war criminals and his treatment since his arrest has only reinforced that truth.
Thanks again, and BTW I thought Bobby Dellelo's lawyer was an inspiration. I hope more people read this article and eventually solitary confinement is acknowledged by one and all to be the torture it is.