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Wednesday, June 05, 2013
Free Bradley Manning
Largest demonstrations yet as
court martial begins
Fort
Meade, June 1, 2013.
A thousand people came out to
Fort Meade on June 1st for a mass rally in support of Bradley Manning. The
demonstration brought together a wonderfully diverse group of supporters whose
cheers, chants, speakers and hundreds of smiling faces energized the group prior
to one of the most important trials in American history. Ralliers marched from
the Reece Road main gate to the Llewelyn gate, honoring the heroic
whistleblower.
Guest speakers, who included Pentagon Papers whistleblower Daniel Ellsberg,
gay rights activist and opponent of 'Dont Ask Don't Tell' Lt. Dan Choi, former
US diplomat Col. Ann Wright and former Iranian prisoner Sarah Shroud who spent
in two years in solitary confinement, all raised a number of important issues
about the trial.
Col. Ann Wright in particular emphasized how Bradley Manning took great
personal risk to reveal the truth of unjust wars and that he exposed the truth
of Guantanamo prison, while Sarah Shroud pointed out that the US has the highest
number of prisoners in solitary confinement per capita in the world and that
solitary confinement is a means to break prisoners down. Daniel Ellsberg
discussed the chilling effect of Obama’s war on whistleblowers has made it
difficult for those who witness war crimes to expose them. All speakers, and
protesters, agreed Bradley Manning is a whistleblower, and that we should be
proud of his heroic actions. National events were also held in Phoenix AZ, Tuscon AZ, Dublin CA,
Los Angeles CA, Montrose CA, West Hollywood CA, San Diego CA, San Fracisco CA,
Santa Cruz CA, Hartford CT, Tallahassee FL, Tampa FL, Des Moines IA, Chicago IL,
Cambridge MA, Boston MA, Portland ME, Minneapolis MN, Honolulu HI, Highland Park
NJ, Delmar NY, Medford OR, Toledo OH, and Seattle WA. International events were held in London, UK, Brisbane, Australia,
Sydney, Australia, Vancouver, Canada, Toronto, Canada, Heidelberg, Germany,
Berlin, Germany, Cardiff, Wales, Rome, Italy, and Seoul, South Korea. Bradley Manning's lawyer David Coombs issued a statement thanking
supporters for their passionate efforts:
"On behalf of both myself and PFC Manning, I would like to thank
everyone for their continued support over the last three years. I especially
appreciate the the tireless fundraising and awareness efforts of Courage to
Resist and the Bradley Manning Support Network. Finally, a special thank you to
those journalists who have been reporting on PFC Manning since the beginning and
who have brought worldwide attention to this important case. I AM BRADLEY
MANNING."
After three long years of delays and abuse, the
court martial has begun. Report from day 1
Humanist
soldier.
More than eleven hundred days after he
was arrested, Pfc. Bradley Manning’s court martial finally began in earnest at
Ft. Meade, MD, where defense and government lawyers gave opening statements on
the intentions behind Bradley’s release of hundreds of thousands of classified
military documents to the website WikiLeaks.
Defense lawyer David Coombs recounted a poignant turning point during
Bradley’s time in Iraq. On Christmas Eve, 2009, an Army vehicle narrowly avoided
injury, but another civilian car carrying a family (2 adults and 3 children),
wasn't so lucky. In pulling to the side of the road to allow the convoy to pass,
they hit an explosive. The explosion blew through the car and killed one of
them. His fellow soldiers celebrated into the night, cheering the U.S. soldiers’
survival, but twenty-two-year-old Bradley couldn’t forget about the dead and
injured Iraqis.
“From then on,” Coombs said, “[Bradley] struggled.” Not your typical soldier,
Bradley wore customized dog tags that read “humanist.” He strove to help his
unit, wanting everyone to come home safely every day, but he wanted Iraqi's to
go home safely every day too.
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