Bradley Manning Supporters Targeted for Repression

By Richie Marini

On Saturday, June 4th 2011, hundreds of people from around the country converged outside the prison at Ft. Leavenworth, Kansas, where alleged whistle blower Bradley Manning is being held since his transfer from the Marine base in Quantico, VA – where he has been tortured and held in solitary confinement for almost a year.  This was the second major protest this year in support of the Army private who has been accused of giving files to Wikileaks which document war crimes committed by the United States in Iraq such as the “Collateral Murder” video, which shows an U.S. Apache helicopter opening fire on civilians.

The first major protest was on March 20th, when 350 people gathered outside the Quantico Marine base where the 23 year old was being forced to sleep naked. 

Manning is being charged with “giving intelligence to the enemy though indirect means” and facing a life sentence and a possible death sentence.  Those protesting the young man’s treatment planned to lay flowers at a public monument outside the military base on public property.  However, when word spread about the protesters’ plans, the Marines, in cooperation with state and local police, closed the public monument for the day and denied the protesters their right to freely and peacefully assemble in a public space.  Not only were they denied the right to peacefully assemble, but they were met with dozens of state and local police in riot gear who proceeded to violently push the protesters away from the public monument.  Thirty-three people, including one minor, were arrested and charged with multiple accounts of “failure to disperse in a riot zone”, “participation in unlawful assembly”, “malicious intent to block traffic” and various other related charges.

The 33 individuals will appear at the General District Court, where there is no jury, in the coming weeks.  However, the protesters will not be on trial together since the government has refused to allow the protesters to face the charges together in fear of it becoming a “public spectacle”.  Furthermore, the government prosecutor who has indicated that the government wishes to keep the trials quiet and out of the public eye without a jury presence, has requested up to 48 hours in jail and/or hundreds of dollars in fines for those who are found guilty BUT would recommend a year in jail and thousands of dollars in fines for those who wish to appeal a guilty ruling and take the trial in front of a jury.  The trials are slated to start on June 8th and continue throughout the summary until August 18th.  During this time Bradley Manning’s pre-trials are slated to start as well.  The government is also trying to extradite Julian Assange, the spokesperson for Wikileaks (which is the website in which Manning is accused of giving the documents to) in an attempt to charge him with treason and espionage.  Julian Assange will also be at the High Court in London on July 12th where he will start a two day trial appealing extradition to Sweden.  Julian Assange’s attorneys have stated that if he is extradited to Sweden the United States can and will extradite him to the U.S. where he could face the death penalty.

The Obama administration seems willing to go to extraordinary measures to suppress information about their war crimes.  They have tortured a young army private accused of releasing documents about those crimes.  They are threatening 33 protesters for speaking out against that torture.  They are attempting to extradite a foreign reporter for publishing those crimes yet they have openly and outright refused to prosecute those under the Bush Administration who authorized and committed these crimes. 

Watch video from the protest at Quantico, March 20

The Bradley Manning Rally at the Quantico Marine Base from Mike Knish on Vimeo.