Bradley Manning is a 23-year-old Army intelligence analyst who has been charged with passing classified material to Wikileaks. If it is true, then far from being a criminal, he is the only person to have fulfilled obligations under international law by exposing war crimes.
For almost a year, Bradley has been in solitary confinement in a maximum-security Marine brig in Quantico without so much as a pre-trial hearing. He is getting the worst of the usual US prison conditions with some flavours of mistreatment imported from Guantánamo and Abu Ghraib: he is not allowed to exercise in his cell and was forced to sleep naked. He will soon be transferred to Leavenworth, Kansas, where he will be farther from friends and family and from large numbers of supporters.
The more attention given to this issue now, the more likely the judge will make his trial public – a pre-condition of a fair trial. Please check out www.bradleymanning.org for ways to support Bradley – sign the “Stand with Brad” petition, make a donation to his defense, write him a letter, get stickers or a t-shirt, or join a protest.