I imagine you’ve at least heard of the name Bradley Manning. He’s a 23 year old soldier in the US Army, arrested on suspicion of providing material to Wikileaks. I’ve been slow to digest the story but, now that I’ve started, I’ve become quickly horrified by the details.
He has been held since July 2010 in solitary confinement, 23 hours a day; he is given one hour a day to leave the cell, whereupon he is allowed to walk in circles, while shackled; he is continually questioned; he is woken at night whenever he curls up in the corner of his bed or otherwise is outside the guards’ view. Now, in the last few days, it has been decided to strip him at night before he goes to sleep, and to keep him naked when he steps outside his cell for his morning inspection.
It goes without saying that these measures are punitive and seem designed explicitly to affect his mental and physical health. To say that they are disproportionate to his alleged crime supposes both that he has been convicted – he hasn’t – and that they are proportionate to any crime, when, simply, they are inhumane.
This is a good summary from The Guardian, with a rightfully impassioned conclusion. [ADDED: This also makes the point brilliantly].
There is much more detail at the Bradley Manning Support Network. This afternoon I’ve signed the petition on their site and donated to the support fund. There is also a UK Friends of Bradley Manning network.
I have also written to my MP and to the US Ambassador to the UK (letters below). You can easily write to your MP via this site. The name and address for the US Embassy is
Ambassador Louis B. Susman
U.S. Embassy
24 Grosvenor Square
London, W1A 1AE
I urge you to do the same.
Dear Ms Jowell,
I am writing with concern about the treatment of Bradley Manning, a prisoner held at United States Marine Corps Base Quantico Brig in Virginia on suspicion of having passed classified material to Wikileaks.
He has been held at this institution since July 2010 in conditions which are obscene: he is kept in solitary confinement 23 hours a day; barred from exercising in his cell; given just one hour outside his cell per day to walk around in circles in a room alone while shackled, and is returned to his cell the minute he stops walking; forced to respond to guards’ inquiries every 5 minutes, all day, everyday; and woken at night each time he is curled up in the corner of his bed or otherwise outside the guards’ full view.
To add to this sorry litany comes the news that he is now being forced to be sleep naked and remain naked when brought from his cell for the morning inspection.
These punitive measures seem designed explicitly to erode his mental and physical health. Forced nudity is almost certainly a breach of the Geneva Conventions; and, while the Conventions do not technically apply to Manning, as he is not a prisoner of war, they certainly establish the minimal protections to which all detainees – let alone citizens convicted of nothing – are entitled.
I ask you to raise the treatment of Bradley Manning in the House. This country prides itself on its ‘special relationship’ with the United States; there is nothing in this sorry case to elicit the slightest glimmer of pride. We have a moral duty to challenge the United States administration on its inhumane treatment of Bradley Manning. Our silence on the issue makes us complicit.
Yours sincerely,
Michael Dennis
Dear Mr Susman,
I am writing with concern about the treatment of Bradley Manning, a prisoner held at United States Marine Corps Base Quantico Brig in
Virginia on suspicion of having passed classified material to
Wikileaks.
He has been held at this institution since July 2010 in conditions
which are obscene: he is kept in solitary confinement 23 hours a day;
barred from exercising in his cell; given just one hour outside his
cell per day to walk around in circles in a room alone while shackled,
and is returned to his cell the minute he stops walking; forced to
respond to guards’ inquiries every 5 minutes, all day, everyday; and
woken at night each time he is curled up in the corner of his bed or
otherwise outside the guards’ full view.
To add to this sorry litany comes the news that he is now being forced
to be sleep naked and remain naked when brought from his cell for the
morning inspection.
These punitive measures seem designed explicitly to erode his mental
and physical health. Forced nudity is almost certainly a breach of the
Geneva Conventions; and, while the Conventions do not technically apply to Manning, as he is not a prisoner of war, they certainly establish the minimal protections to which all detainees – let alone citizens convicted of nothing – are entitled.
I ask you to communicate my concern at the conduct towards Bradley Manning to the authorities in Washington – a concern shared by many other people in this country and around the world. The treatment he is currently subject to shames your country and, by association, shames us all.
Yours sincerely,
Michael Dennis
