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Chelsea Manning

Chelsea Writes On 5 Years In Confinement In New Guardian Op-Ed

May 28, 2015 Chelsea E. Manning, www.chelseamanning.org , ,
It all began in the first few weeks of 2010, when I made the life-changing decision to release to the public a repository of classified (and unclassified but “sensitive” ) documents that provided a simultaneously horrific and beautiful outlook on the war in Iraq and Afghanistan. After spending months preparing to deploy to Afghanistan in 2008, switching to Iraq in 2009 and actually staying in Iraq from 2009-10, I quickly and fully recognized the importance of these documents to the world at large.Today marks five years since I was ordered into military confinement while deployed to Iraq in 2010. I find it difficult to believe, at times, just how long I have been in prison. Throughout this time, there have been so many ups and downs – it often feels like a physical and emotional roller coaster.

Chelsea Manning: The Conscience Of America

April 6, 2015 Nozomi Hayase, www.commondreams.com , ,
April 5th marks the five year anniversary of WikiLeaks publication of the Collateral Murder Video. The footage of a secret US military video depicted an Apache helicopter killing Iraqi civilians, including two Reuters journalists. It provided an uncensored view of modern war for the world to see. The light that shone in the darkness was the conscience of a young woman. Chelsea Manning (formally Bradley Manning) is now serving 35 years behind bars for her great public service. After witnessing Manning confess to her role as WikiLeaks whistleblower at the court-martial proceeding in Fort Meade, Maryland, attorney and President Emeritus of the Center for Constitutional Rights, Michael Ratner said that locking her up “for even a day is to lock up the conscience of our nation”.

Chelsea Manning Joins Twitter, Gets 1,000+ Followers Before Posting

April 4, 2015 Ed Pilkington, www.theguardian.com , ,
Chelsea Manning, the US soldier serving 35 years in military prison for leaking state secrets to WikiLeaks, has joined the social media site Twitter. The army private has secured the handle @xychelsea and will begin posting tweets from noon ET on Friday. Given the conditions of her custody – which do not extend to internet access – she will dictate comments by phone to supporters who will then post on her behalf. The new Twitter feed had by 5.30pm ET on Thursday already attracted more than 1,000 followers, even before the soldier had uttered a word or followed any other accounts.

Chelsea Manning: CIA Torturers Should Be Held Accountable

March 10, 2015 Chelsea E Manning, www.theguardian.com , , ,
Torture is clearly defined as one of these offenses. And, while the treaty precludes extradition for offenses that are deemed as “a political offense”, it also excludes “murder or other wilful crime, punishable under the laws of both [nations] with a penalty of at least one year”. Torture, then, is not deemed a political offense. However, while the treaty does not bind either nation to extradite its own citizens – making automatic extradition impossible – under the law, the US Secretary of State has the power to order the surrender of any US citizen whose extradition has been requested. I believe that if such a request should come before the Secretary of State, then he (or she) is morally and ethically obligated to grant it or risk further degrading the credibility of the US before the rest of the world and implicitly endorsing other countries that still use torture as a political weapon against their own citizens.

Army Court Orders Military To Use Correct Pronouns For Manning

March 8, 2015 Staff, www.chelseamanning.org , ,
The Army Court of Criminal Appeals has ordered the military to stop using male pronouns when referring to Chelsea Manning in all legal papers filed in her appeal (see below). This Order comes after the military filed an opposition to requests by Manning’s attorneys to use her legal name and female pronouns when referring to her in court documents. The Order specifies that “future formal papers filed before this court and all future orders and decisions issued by this court shall either be neutral, e.g., Private First Class Manning or appellant, or employ a feminine pronoun.”

Two Updates On Chelsea Manning

February 13, 2015 Lolita C. Baldor, www.news.yahoo.com , ,
Hormone treatment for gender reassignment has been approved for Chelsea Manning, the former intelligence analyst convicted of espionage for sending classified documents to the WikiLeaks website. Defense Department officials said Thursday that the hormone therapy was approved Feb. 5 by Col. Erica Nelson, commandant of the U.S. Disciplinary Barracks at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, where Manning is serving a 35-year sentence. The treatment would enable the Army private formerly known as Bradley Manning to make the transition to a woman. Manning changed her legal name in April 2014. The officials were not authorized to discuss the matter publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity. The memo approving Manning's hormone treatment was first reported by USA Today.

Freedom Of The Press: Where’s Pardon For Chelsea Manning

January 20, 2015 Matthew Behrens, www.rabble.ca , ,
When a former U.S. army private awoke in her jail cell just over a week ago -- some 17 months into a 35-year jail sentence -- she could have been forgiven for thinking, in the immediate aftermath of the terrible Paris magazine attacks, that the commutation of her punitive sentence for exercising freedom of speech and conscience was about to be placed on President Obama's desk. Obama, like many world leaders, had just issued stunning, passionate statements about freedom of the press, human dignity, and all the great things that make countries like Canada and the U.S. just so undeniably terrific. For the now 26-year-old Chelsea (previously known as Bradley) Manning, though, it was not to be. She had had the audacity to challenge terrorism by exposing it, not in a manner that humiliated or denigrated her targets, but simply to inform the public, generate discussion, bolster democracy and hold accountable those who had committed atrocities.

Holder Prosecuted Whistleblowers & Journalists, Not Bankers & Torturers

September 25, 2014 Kevin Zeese, greenshadowcabinet.us , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
We urge President Obama to replace Holder with a public interest not a corporate lawyer; that will put the rule of law before corporate power. This appointment is an opportunity to shut the revolving door between big business and government. We also hope the next attorney general will put rule of law ahead of the security state, prosecute torture and other war crimes, protect privacy from US intelligence agencies and protect Freedom of Speech, Assembly and Press. Finally, we hope to see an attorney general that will confront the war culture that has allowed the president to ignore the constitutional requirement that Congress is responsible for deciding when the US goes to war, not the president; and one who respects international law and requires UN approval before the US attacks another nation.

Chelsea Manning Sues Pentagon For Hormone Therapy

September 24, 2014 Matt Sledge, www.huffingtonpost.com , ,
Chelsea Manning on Tuesday sued Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel and the Pentagon in federal court for access to hormone therapy, warning that her mental condition is rapidly deteriorating in the face of more than a year of military officials' delays. In August 2013, the WikiLeaks source formerly known as Bradley Manning began serving a 35-year sentence at the U.S. Disciplinary Barracks in Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, for leaking government documents. But despite the Army's acknowledgment that Manning suffers from gender dysphoria, the prison has so far denied her access to hormones or the opportunity to dress as a woman. "It has now been more than four years since I was first diagnosed with gender dysphoria, a condition that I have struggled with my entire life," Manning wrote in a legal filing.

Chelsea Manning Breaks Silence To Criticise Obama’s Isis Strategy

September 17, 2014 Ed Pilkington, www.theguardian.com , ,
Chelsea Manning, the US army soldier who worked as an intelligence analyst in Iraq before being arrested for passing state secrets to WikiLeaks, says the only way to defeat Isis is to allow the group to set up its own contained “failed ‘state’” where over time its fire would “die out on its own”. Writing in the Guardian, Manning says her experience as an all-source analyst near Baghdad in 2009-10 leads her to doubt the strategy being followed by the Obama administration. She warns that the US-led mission to destroy the extremist group is destined to fail because it will merely feed a “cycle of outrage, recruitment, organizing and even more fighting that goes back decades”. Even with the support of non-western forces, attacking Isis directly from the air or with special forces on the ground risks mission creep and the repeat of past errors. “I believe that Isis strategically feeds off the mistakes and vulnerabilities of the very democratic western states they decry,” she writes.

Amnesty Renews Call To Free Manning

August 3, 2014 Chelsea Manning Support Network, www.chelseamanning.org , ,
Exactly one year after Chelsea Manning was convicted of leaking classified government material, Amnesty International is renewing its call on the US authorities to grant her clemency, release her immediately, and to urgently investigate the potential human rights violations exposed by the leaks. Chelsea Manning has spent the last year as a convicted criminal after exposing information which included evidence of potential human rights violations and breaches of international law. By disseminating classified information via Wikileaks she revealed to the world abuses perpetrated by the US army, military contractors and Iraqi and Afghan troops operating alongside US forces. “It is an absolute outrage that Chelsea Manning is currently languishing behind bars whilst those she helped to expose, who are potentially guilty of human rights violations, enjoy impunity,” said Erika Guevara Rosas, Americas Director Amnesty International. “The US government must grant Chelsea Manning clemency, order her immediate release, and implement a thorough and impartial investigation into the crimes she uncovered.”

Chelsea Manning To Begin Gender Treatment

July 18, 2014 AP, www.washingtonexaminer.com , ,
The Bureau of Prisons has rejected the Army's request to accept the transfer of national security leaker Pvt. Chelsea Manning from the military prison at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, to a civilian facility where she could get better treatment for her gender-identity condition. The military will instead begin the initial treatment for her. Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel has approved the Army's recommendation to keep Manning in military custody and start a rudimentary level of gender treatment, a defense official said Thursday. The initial gender treatments could include allowing Manning to wear some female undergarments and also possibly provide some hormone treatments. The decision raises a number of questions about what level of treatment Manning will be able to get and at what point the private would have to be transferred from the all-male prison to a female facility. Manning has been diagnosed with gender dysphoria, the sense of being a woman in a man's body. Civilian prisons can provide treatment, and the Defense Department has argued repeatedly that it doesn't have the medical expertise needed. As a result, the Army tried to work out a plan to transfer Manning to a federal prison. Officials said Thursday that federal authorities refused the proposal. Officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the matter publicly by name. Manning's lawyer, David Coombs, told The Associated Press on Thursday that he was encouraged that the Army will begin medical treatment.

Chelsea Manning: The Fog Machine of War

June 15, 2014 Chelsea Manning, www.nytimes.com , , ,
If you were following the news during the March 2010 elections in Iraq, you might remember that the American press was flooded with stories declaring the elections a success, complete with upbeat anecdotes and photographs of Iraqi women proudly displaying their ink-stained fingers. The subtext was that United States military operations had succeeded in creating a stable and democratic Iraq. Those of us stationed there were acutely aware of a more complicated reality. Military and diplomatic reports coming across my desk detailed a brutal crackdown against political dissidents by the Iraqi Ministry of Interior and federal police, on behalf of Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki. Detainees were often tortured, or even killed.

An Evening For Manning: One Year Since Trial

June 15, 2014 Staff, www.chelseamanning.org
On Thursday, June 19 in New York, join OR Books and Chelsea Manning’s supporters to mark one year since she went on trial for leaking the Iraq and Afghanistan war logs to WikiLeaks. At TheaterLab (357 W 36th St, 3rd Floor, NYC) journalists, activists and artists who attended the trial will read from a new graphic book by Clark Stoeckley, “The United States vs Private Chelsea Manning: A Graphic Account From Inside the Courtroom”: http://www.orbooks.com/catalog/manning-trial Stoeckley’s book features drawings and writings in real time from inside the courtroom, and captures first-hand the trial of Chelsea Manning, one of the most important and secretive trials in American history.

Manning On Proposed Move To Civilian Prison

May 15, 2014 Byt Staff, www.chelseamanning.org , ,
Late last night, May 13, an AP article reported that unidentified Pentagon officials had indicated that the Office of the Secretary of Defense might transfer Chelsea Manning to a civilian prison facility so that she could receive treatment for gender dysphoria. Chelsea responded to the report concerning her potential transfer as follows: “I wish to clarify that my request for a treatment plan did not involve any request to be transferred. At the beginning of 2014, the U.S. Disciplinary Barracks at Fort Leavenworth, KS and the Army Corrections Command were ready to approve and implement a treatment plan that at least conservatively met the standards set forth by the World Professional Association for Transgender Health. I was content with this plan. Based on these facts I don’t understand why the Office of the Secretary of Defense would feel the need to punt this issue by transferring me.”
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