Friends,
Let me
know if you would like to join us on Thursday, April 11 outside the Truesdale
Detention Center, 2001 Mill Rd., Alexandria, VA 22314. We would demand that
Chelsea must be freed immediately.
Kagiso, Max
Monday, March 25, 2019
'Torture,
Plain and Simple': Chelsea Manning's Supporters Demand Her Release From
Solitary Confinement
Manning
has now been held in isolation for 22 hours per day for the last 17 days, since
being held in contempt of court
Supporters of U.S. Army whistleblower Chelsea Manning are
demanding she be released from solitary confinement, in which she has been held
for 17 days since refusing to answer a grand jury's questions.
Chelsea Resists!, Manning's support committee, released a statement over the weekend
denouncing her treatment and invoking the United Nations' own statements about
the dangers and injustice of isolation in prisons.
"The United States Government has already tortured Chelsea
Manning for months. She attempted suicide twice while incarcerated. Now they're
torturing her again." —Fight for the Future "We condemn the solitary
confinement that Chelsea Manning has been subjected to during her incarceration
at William G. Truesdale Adult Detention Center," the group wrote.
"Chelsea can't be out of her cell while any other prisoners
are out, so she cannot talk to other people, or visit the law library, and has
no access to books or reading material," the committee added.
Other supporters on social media joined the call for Manning to
be released.
This is outrageous. The UN considers anything more than 15 days
in solitary confinement to be a form of torture.
The United States Government has already tortured Chelsea Manning for months. She attempted suicide twice while incarcerated. Now they're torturing her again.
The United States Government has already tortured Chelsea Manning for months. She attempted suicide twice while incarcerated. Now they're torturing her again.
Chelsea Manning is now in solitary confinement, one of the
cruelest methods of imprisonment, all for simply refusing to testify. This is
horrifying and we should fight this tooth and nail.
Chelsea Manning has been held in solitary since her confinement
16 days ago. She has lost weight and is only allowed to leave her cell from 1
am to 3 am. This is torture, plain and simple. ADC needs to put Chelsea into
general population IMMEDIATELY. https://xychelsea.is/?page_id=28
Manning has been held in isolation for 22 hours per day, with
one break from 1:00 to 3:00am. Her treatment qualifies as prolonged solitary
confinement according to Juan Mendez, U.N. Special Rapporteur on Torture.
"After 15 days," Mendez wrote in 2014, "certain changes in brain functions occur
and the harmful psychological effects of isolation can become irreversible.
Prolonged solitary confinement must be absolutely prohibited, because it always
amounts to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment, and may even constitute
torture."
The group also condemned the prison system's use of the term
"administrative segregation," or adseg, to whitewash Manning's
treatment.
The term was "designed to sound less cruel than 'solitary
confinement,'" wrote the committee. "However, Chelsea has been kept
in her cell for 22 hours a day. This treatment qualifies as solitary
confinement."
Manning arrived at the Truesdale detention center in Alexandria,
Virginia on March 8 after appearing before a grand jury, which she says
interrogated her about her 2010 decision to leak U.S. military documents to
Wikileaks, making public possible U.S. war crimes in Afghanistan and Iraq.
Manning said she had already answered similar questions in 2010
when she was court-martialed before serving seven years of a 35-year prison
sentence, and answered the grand jury by saying, "I object to the question and
refuse to answer on the grounds that the question is in violation of my First,
Fourth, and Sixth Amendment, and other statutory rights."
"Chelsea is a principled person, and she has made clear
that while this kind of treatment will harm her, and will almost certainly
leave lasting scars, it will never make her change her mind about cooperating
with the grand jury," the committee's statement reads.
This work is licensed under a Creative
Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 License
Donations can be sent
to the Baltimore Nonviolence Center, 325 E. 25th St., Baltimore, MD
21218. Ph: 410-323-1607; Email: mobuszewski2001 [at] comcast.net. Go to http://baltimorenonviolencecenter.blogspot.com/
"The master class
has always declared the wars; the subject class has always fought the battles.
The master class has had all to gain and nothing to lose, while the subject
class has had nothing to gain and everything to lose--especially their
lives." Eugene Victor Debs
No comments:
Post a Comment