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For Immediate Release
January, 16 2017, 12:45pm EDT
Contact:
Email:,press@fightforthefuture.org
The Internet Wants to Give Chelsea Manning A Hug
Thousands are joining online #HugsForChelsea campaign, posting photos with arms outstretched calling for President Obama to grant commutation request
Following reports that Chelsea Manning is on President Obama's "short list" for a possible commutation, the Internet has exploded with support for the imprisoned transgender transparency advocate. Over the weekend, thousands of people started taking part in a spontaneous #HugsForChelsea campaign, posting photos of themselves with their arms outstretched as if waiting to give Chelsea Manning a hug, calling for President Obama to grant her clemency. Some prominent individuals including Michael Stipe of REM have joined the effort.
See a selection of #HugsForChelsea photos here: https://imgur.com/a/GS2Tw
See the landing page for the campaign here.
"Chelsea has so much love and support coming from people across the political spectrum," said Evan Greer, campaign director of Fight for the Future, who posted the first #HugsForChelsea photo, "She has suffered enough. People are coming out of the woodwork to speak out. President Obama needs to do the right thing and free her now. After getting to know her as one of her supporters over the last year, I personally can't wait to give her a hug."
"As President Obama's days in office wind down, people from all walks of life are standing in solidarity with Chelsea and urging the President to save her before it is too late," said Chase Strangio, Chelsea's ACLU attorney. "After years of suffering in prison under horrific conditions including long stretches of solitary confinement, the denial of health care for gender dysphoria and arbitrary punishments including for attempting suicide, Chelsea needs to be set free before this treatment results in her death."
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Background:
More than 100,000 people signed an official Whitehouse.gov petition, meeting the threshold to require a response from the President.
Hundreds of thousands have signed previous petitions organized by Fight for the Future and other groups decrying Chelsea's treatment while in prison
The ACLU and more than a dozen prominent LGBT organizations sent a letter to President Obama calling for Chelsea's commutation
Amnesty International sent a letter to President Obama, and supporters sent over 25,000 emails to the White House.
Human Rights Watch sent a letter to President Obama supporting clemency
Dozens of other human rights, free speech, government transparency, and civil liberties organizations have called for Chelsea's release
A wide range of notable people have publicly supported Chelsea including Pentagon Papers whistleblower Daniel Ellsberg, retired U.S. Air Force Colonel Morris C. Davis, journalist Glenn Greenwald, Sean Ono Lennon, REM lead singer Michael Stipe, comedian Margaret Cho, Thurston Moore, Tom Morello of Rage Against the Machine,, and many others.
Learn more at FreeChelsea.com, and follow Chelsea on Twitter at @xychelsea
Fight for the Future is a group of artists, engineers, activists, and technologists who have been behind the largest online protests in human history, channeling Internet outrage into political power to win public interest victories previously thought to be impossible. We fight for a future where technology liberates -- not oppresses -- us.
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Western Media Called Out for 'Misleading' Portrayal of Iranians Defending Infrastructure as 'Human Shields'
"The real legal and moral question is why civilian infrastructure is being targeted at all," said one expert.
Apr 07, 2026
After US President Donald Trump made his genocidal declaration on Tuesday that the "whole civilization" of Iran "will die tonight," reports began to roll in of people across the country standing outside the power plants, bridges, and other civilian infrastructure the president promised to bomb.
Photos shared to social media by the government-affiliated Mehr news agency showed scene after scene of Iranians forming human chains outside power plants in Tabriz and Kermanshah.
A video showed dozens of students assembled on the Dezful bridge in southwestern Iran, which is more than 1,700 years old and is believed to be one of the oldest functioning bridges in the world.
Over the weekend, Trump said that unless Iran opened the Strait of Hormuz, a critical shipping lane that it has used as a chokepoint against the Western economy, by Tuesday, he would bomb infrastructure relied upon by tens of millions of Iranians, which Amnesty International said could amount to a "war crime."
"We’re giving them till tomorrow, eight o’clock eastern time, and after that, they’re going to have no bridges. They’re going to have no power plants," Trump said on Monday, reiterating his plans to bomb Iran "back to the Stone Ages."
According to Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian, more than 14 million people in the country responded to the threat by volunteering to put their bodies on the line and defend the infrastructure at risk. He said they'd "declared their readiness to sacrifice their lives in defense of Iran.”
The government has encouraged Iranians, including children and young students, to take to the streets to form human chains around infrastructure that may come under threat, leading some Western media outlets to raise the fear that people were being used as "human shields."
Sina Toossi, a fellow at the Center for International Policy, however, said this "is a deeply misleading framing."
"Iranians are not being placed in front of targets," he said, referencing several videos of the demonstrations. "Many are voluntarily showing up to defend the infrastructure that keeps their society alive."
He noted the participation of Iranian celebrities in the human chains, including the composer and Tar player Ali Ghamsari, who stationed himself outside a power plant, and the pop singer Benyamin Bahadori, who filmed a video of himself walking along a bridge that had come under threat.
"This is about people trying to safeguard electricity, water, and basic civilization under open threat," Toossi said. "The real legal and moral question is why civilian infrastructure is being targeted at all."
Agnès Callamard, secretary general of Amnesty International, said on Tuesday that Trump's threats could prove "apocalyptic" to millions of Iranians, plunging the "entire country into darkness and depriv[ing] millions of their fundamental human rights to life, water, food, healthcare, and an adequate standard of living."
"Power plants, water systems, and energy infrastructure are indispensable to civilian life, underpinning access to clean water, medical care, hospital electricity, food supply chains, and basic livelihoods," she added. "Attacking them would be disproportionate and thus unlawful under international humanitarian law and could amount to a war crime.”
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Watchdog Warns Trump Threat Against Iran Could Unleash 'Fatal Nuclear Disaster'
“To set up the possibility of another Chernobyl or Fukushima in the Middle East is criminally irresponsible,” said the head of Beyond Nuclear.
Apr 07, 2026
Sustainable energy watchdog Beyond Nuclear on Tuesday issued a dire warning about President Donald Trump potentially creating a "fatal nuclear disaster" by ordering military strikes on Iran's nuclear power plant in the port city of Bushehr.
The group noted that the 1,000-megawatt Russian-built water-water energetic reactor (VVER) at the Bushehr facility is the same design as nuclear reactors in Ukraine that the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has warned could spark a humanitarian catastrophe if struck by Russian missiles.
Beyond Nuclear commented that there hasn't been nearly as much attention paid by the international community to the risks posed by a US or Israeli strike on the Bushehr plant, which it cautioned has "highly radioactive uranium fuel inside the reactor" that is "stored in cooling pools and on-site casks."
"Any extended loss of power caused by an attack or a direct hit could see the fuel overheat and ignite, potentially leading to explosions," the group explained. "The resulting radiological releases would result in long-lasting radioactive fallout affecting vast areas in Iran, neighboring countries, and beyond, contaminating agricultural land as well as sea water, an essential drinking water source for a region that relies on desalination."
Beyond Nuclear's warning came days after the IAEA issued an assessment of military strikes that took place near the Bushehr reactor. Although the agency found that the facility itself so far has suffered no damage from US-Israeli strikes, it warned that any attack that even comes close to striking the nuclear reactor risks calamity.
Trump for the last several days has been threatening to attack Iran's energy infrastructure, which Linda Pentz Gunter, executive director of Beyond Nuclear, said "would be a war crime."
“The Geneva Convention specifically defines a war crime to include hitting facilities that, if damaged or destroyed, would result in extensive loss of noncombatant life,” Pentz Gunter said. “A commercial nuclear power plant certainly falls into this category.”
On Tuesday morning, the president delivered his most bloodthirsty threat to Iran yet, declaring that "a whole civilization will die tonight, never to be brought back again,” unless Iran met his demands to reopen the Strait of Hormuz, which has been closed to most ship traffic for the last several weeks after Trump and Israel launched an unprovoked war.
Ryan Goodman, professor at New York University School of Law, noted in a social media post that Trump's mere threat violates the Geneva Conventions, which prohibit "acts or threats of violence the primary purpose of which is to spread terror among the civilian population."
Pentz Gunter also took a shot at Trump's brazen threats against Iran's energy infrastructure.
"To set up the possibility of another Chernobyl or Fukushima in the Middle East is criminally irresponsible,” she said. “And even though we know Iran’s nuclear facilities were merely the pretext for the US-Israeli attack, we must remember that it was President Trump during his first term who effectively tore up a perfectly effective nuclear inspection and verification agreement—the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action—that ensured Iran stayed within the boundaries of a civil nuclear program."
Three physicians organizations on Tuesday—Physicians for Social Responsibility, Physicians for Human Rights, and International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War—issued a joint declaration condemning Trump's threats to bomb Iranian power plants, highlighting the particular dangers of any attack on nuclear facilities.
"The bombings of nuclear power plants are illegal under international law and risk harmful radioactive contamination of the environment, posing long-term danger to the health of surrounding communities and ecosystems," the groups said. "We unequivocally condemn this pattern of strikes near and on nuclear facilities, including attacks by Israel and Iran in late March and another deadly attack near Iran’s Bushehr Nuclear Power Plant this weekend."
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As Trump Threatens Genocidal Attack, House Democrats Rebuked for Dragging Feet on War Powers Vote
“Inaction from House Democratic leadership is complicity," said an organizer for the National Iranian American Council.
Apr 07, 2026
Democratic leadership in Congress has been quick to condemn President Donald Trump after his genocidal threat to wipe out Iranian civilization on Tuesday. But critics are wondering why they didn't take stronger action when they had the opportunity weeks ago.
Trump pledged Tuesday morning that "a whole civilization will die tonight" if Iran refuses to open the Strait of Hormuz—a threat to carry out widespread destruction and mass slaughter across a nation of more than 90 million people.
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) referred to the president as "an extremely sick person" and said "each Republican who refuses to join us in voting against this wanton war of choice owns every consequence of whatever the hell this is."
House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) joined in, agreeing that "Congress must immediately end this reckless war of choice in Iran before Donald Trump plunges us into World War III" and that "it's time for every single Republican to put patriotic duty over party and stop the madness."
Journalist Adam Johnson, however, noted that Democrats had a chance to “stop the madness” weeks ago, when it seemed they may have had the votes to pass a war powers resolution in the House at the end of March that would have limited Trump’s ability to further strike Iran. But instead, said Johnson, “ranking Member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee Gregory Meeks (D-N.Y.) delayed the House War Powers vote until mid-April.”
At the time, Meeks contended that Democrats did not have enough votes to ensure the measure would pass and that he'd bring it to the floor only if it could be guaranteed that Democrats would win.
However, news reports indicated that at least three Republicans—Reps. Thomas Massie (Ky.), Warren Davidson (Ohio), and Nancy Mace (SC) were all likely on board to pass the resolution, as were most or all of the four Democrats who voted against the one that fell just short in February.
Meanwhile, some Democrats whose absences were cited to justify delaying the vote reportedly returned to town in time for one to be held.
Even if there were indeed not enough votes, it was unclear why Meeks believed additional votes would be there over two weeks later.
In the days since Democrats balked at bringing the resolution to the floor, Trump has moved thousands more US troops to the Middle East, and his threats against Iran have grown markedly more extreme.
Over Easter weekend, he threatened on Truth Social to launch attacks against civilian infrastructure, including power plants and bridges, actions that Amnesty International said could amount to war crimes and "would unleash catastrophic harm on millions.” Asked about his comments during the White House Easter celebration, Trump said that if Iran does not open the strait by Tuesday, he is "considering blowing everything up."
He has also reportedly mulled committing ground troops to several operations to occupy parts of Iranian territory in hopes of securing the strait or to carry out a mission to seize Iran's enriched uranium, both of which experts have warned would likely prove catastrophic and put American troops in danger.
In a statement issued Tuesday, Meeks joined the chorus of Democrats condemning Trump's comments, saying that "threatening to destroy Iranian power plants and bridges is not a strategy, it is a war crime."
However, his statement did not mention any plans to re-launch a war powers resolution once Congress returns to session.
Meeks' office did not immediately respond to a request for comment about whether he plans to bring the resolution back to the floor next week or whether he regretted not pushing harder to bring the vote before the recess.
Erik Sperling, the executive director of Just Foreign Policy, described Trump's actions as a predictable result of Meeks and other House Democratic leaders "refusing to hold a vote to have Congress go on record about Trump's impending escalation."
"They knew escalation would entail genocidal war crimes and/or ground troops," he said, "and still let the House stay silent."
Iran has remained steadfast that it will not negotiate a ceasefire unless the US agrees to completely end hostilities, lift sanctions, and compensate Iran for the war's damage.
A former Iranian diplomat briefed on negotiations between Iran and Omani mediators told The New York Times that the plan called on the US Congress to formally end the war and that any compensation would have to be guaranteed by the legislative branch.
According to a CNN poll released last week, disapproval of Trump's war in Iran has risen over the past month, with 66% of Americans saying they somewhat or strongly oppose it and just 34% in approval.
Independent journalist Aída Chávez, who has covered previous attempts by Democrats to drag out war powers votes, said that the party "could position themselves as the ones ending this historically unpopular war."
"They could force war powers vote after war powers vote," she said. "They’re choosing not to."
The National Iranian American Council (NIAC) is planning a press conference with around two dozen other groups outside Jeffries' office in New York on Thursday to protest what it called "a dangerous act of political negligence" by House Democrats, "that continues to leave the illegal US-Israel war on Iran unchecked."
“Inaction from House Democratic leadership is complicity," said Etan Mabourakh, NIAC Action's organizing manager. "Our Iranian American community will not let Democrats repeat previous mistakes out of political fear... we demand leaders with the courage to act boldly and take votes in the House to stop this war now."
But as Trump's threats grow more "unhinged," some in Congress are saying merely reining in his war powers is no longer enough and many Democrats have called for him to be impeached or removed by his Cabinet via the 25th Amendment.
"Yes. We need to assert congressional authority and stop this illegal war in Iran, said Sen. Ed Markey (D-Mass.). "But, Trump is clearly an unstable warmonger at odds with the will of the people. Removal is the top priority."
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