Support for Army Private Bradley Manning, accused of giving government secrets to WikiLeaks, has manifested into protests on both sides of the Atlantic.

 

Demonstrators from Wales, where Manning attended school as a teenager and his mother still resides, rallied in London last weekend to criticize the U.S. government’s treatment of the soldier. Manning has spent the past eight months awaiting trial in a military brig at the Quantico Marine Corps Base in Virginia, forced to endure solitary confinement for 23 hours a day and to sleep only in his shorts at nighttime.

 

In addition to rallies held in Canada, Australia and Germany, about 400 protestors marched outside Quantico calling for Manning’s release. Among them was Daniel Ellsberg, the military analyst who exposed the classified documents during the Vietnam War that became known as the Pentagon Papers. Ellsberg was arrested along with about 30 other protesters who staged a sit-in and refused to move when ordered to disperse by local police dressed in riot gear.

 

Manning is accused of downloading copies of tens of thousands of State Department cables, as well as a video that shows U.S. troops in Iraq killing civilians. The U.S. Army has filed 22 charges against him, including aiding the enemy. On March 13, P.J. Crowley, the assistant secretary of state for public affairs, was forced to resign when he told a gathering at MIT that, “What is being done to Bradley Manning is ridiculous and counterproductive and stupid on the part of the department of defense.” 

-Noel Brinkerhoff, David Wallechinsky

 

Wikileaks: Bradley Manning's Welsh Supporters Protest (BBC News)

Protesters Arrested at Quantico as Rally for Alleged Wikileaks Source Turns Tense (by Darryl Fears, Washington Post)

Is Bradley Manning Being Punished Before Trial? (BBC News)

Obama Fires State Dept. Spokesman Who Accused Defense Dept. of Abusing Bradley Manning (by Noel Brinkerhoff and David Wallechinsky, AllGov)