Chelsea Manning who released tens of thousands of pages of important documents as well as videos to Wikileaks on the Iraq and Afghanistan War, Guantanamo Bay prison and State Department cables has had her sentence commuted by President Obama in the last few days of his presidency.
Chelsea has been jailed for nearly seven years, and her 35-year sentence was by far the longest punishment ever imposed in the United States for a leak conviction. She served longer than any other whistleblower. Now, under the terms of Obama’s commutation announced today, Manning will be freed in five months, on May 17 of this year. If she had served the full term of her sentence she would not have been released until 2045.
I was a member of the Chelsea Manning Support Network from soon after her arrest and tens of thousands of people donated to legal defense and the campaign to release her as well as protested on her behalf. Tens of thousands urged President Obama to pardon her or commute her sentence. When we learned last week that Manning had made the short list to receive clemency from the president, it still felt like an unlikely outcome. But today, President Obama gave us the best news he could in his final days with the release of Manning.
Manning is not only a historically important whistleblower, she has also become a leader of the trans movement as she went public on her sexual identification and fought for her medical and personal rights while incarcerated by the military. She has inspired many with her courage, bravery and actions.
We urge the president to commute the sentences of other political prisoners including, among others, Leonard Peltier, Mumia Abu Jamal, the Cuban Five (Gerardo Hernández, Antonio Guerrero, Ramón Labañino, Fernando González, and René González), Black Panther Party, New Afrikan, and Black Liberation Army political prisoner and the remaining prisoners at the Guantanamo Bay prison camp. We also urge that investigations of Julian Assange and Edward Snowden be stopped and any secret indictments be dropped.
President Obama also commuted the sentence of Puerto Rican nationalist and FALN leader, Oscar Rivera Lopez. Rivera was convicted and sentenced to 55 years in federal prison and served 34 years.
Here is the list of what is likely to be the final pardons and commutations by President Obama.