by Caitlinator
Report: Wikileaks leaker Bradley Manning subjected to “cruel and inhumane treatment” at Quantico brig
[Via Boing Boing]
Glen Greenwald writes about the conditions under which 22-year-old Pfc. Bradley Manning, presumed to be the source of classified documents published by WikiLeaks, is being held at the Marine brig in Quantico, Virginia. He’s been held there for 5 months, but has not yet been convicted of any crime. Greenwald interviewed “everal people directly familiar with the conditions of Manning’s detention, ultimately including a Quantico brig official (Lt. Brian Villiard).” He writes that Manning is being held “under conditions that constitute cruel and inhumane treatment and, by the standards of many nations, even torture,” conditions “likely to create long-term psychological injuries.”
Since his arrest in May, Manning has been a model detainee, without any episodes of violence or disciplinary problems. He nonetheless was declared from the start to be a “Maximum Custody Detainee,” the highest and most repressive level of military detention, which then became the basis for the series of inhumane measures imposed on him.
From the beginning of his detention, Manning has been held in intensive solitary confinement. For 23 out of 24 hours every day — for seven straight months and counting — he sits completely alone in his cell. Even inside his cell, his activities are heavily restricted; he’s barred even from exercising and is under constant surveillance to enforce those restrictions. For reasons that appear completely punitive, he’s being denied many of the most basic attributes of civilized imprisonment, including even a pillow or sheets for his bed (he is not and never has been on suicide watch). For the one hour per day when he is freed from this isolation, he is barred from accessing any news or current events programs. Lt. Villiard protested that the conditions are not “like jail movies where someone gets thrown into the hole,” but confirmed that he is in solitary confinement, isolated entirely alone in his cell except for the one hour per day he is taken out.
[More]
I certainly hope this is all wrong but knowing how almost all of the Bill of Rights have been degraded by both parties over the last 10 years, I am not surprised. We are returning to practices of incarceration and jurisprudence that our Founding Fathers gave their lives to stop.
So, someone who has not been convicted of any crime is treated as harshly as a violent killer serving life. And the response of his jailers it that it is not as bad as the hole seen in movies like Cool Hand Luke. Great.
This type of solitary confinement has been shown to be extremely injurious to any human being. The worst thing you can do to someone is put them into complete solitary. John McCain described it:
“It’s an awful thing, solitary,” John McCain wrote of his five and a half years as a prisoner of war in Vietnam—more than two years of it spent in isolation in a fifteen-by-fifteen-foot cell, unable to communicate with other P.O.W.s except by tap code, secreted notes, or by speaking into an enamel cup pressed against the wall. “It crushes your spirit and weakens your resistance more effectively than any other form of mistreatment.”
Mistreatment is correct. If you want to destroy someone, put them in solitary for a short time. Our courts, for 100 years, have called such mistreatment inhuman. Perhaps we can rationalize it for the worst convicted criminals of our society but form someone who has not even been convicted by a jury? Five months in solitary is how we treat people awaiting trial?
In a nation of laws you do not mistreat someone in pre-trial detention. There has been no charge that warrants this abuse, much less a conviction. It seems like a lot of people got the wrong message from The Ox-Bow Incident. There are reasons for the laws we have and for the way we treat people in custody.
Perhaps being in the military reduces many rights from the Constitution (although military courts have said this is not true) and that the BILL OF RIGHTS applies with full force to men and women in the military service. … “) but it should not permit the Executive branch of our government to allow such inhumane treatment of a soldier before any trial, much less a conviction. How in the world can he really prepare for his own defense under these conditions?
One of the commenters captured some of my feelings:
No one is even suggesting that he not be held for his violation. Re read the damned article. Although I believe they ought to charge him if they want to hold him, he’s in military custody. The rules are different. Fine.
But holding him in isolation when it’s a known danger is something we ought not be doing. We even have “official” guidelines about this. Those guidelines ought to be followed. Why not?
Look, charge him, try him, convict him, execute him (if you must). But do it right. This ISN’T Iran or China or Russia and I wasn’t aware that we were using those nations a measuring sticks against our own ‘great democracy’ but what the fuck, why not, I guess? When you are pointing at a Chinese prison and saying ‘well, at least we aren’t like that’, this country has completely lost it’s place and any moral authority it ever had. Pathetic. We used to at least APPEAR to be decent and lawful. We used to at least put on that we could take authority to do what we did because of our high standards. Instead today we’ve become the Jerry Springer show of the world – ugly, crass and quite unashamed of it.
The ironic thing for Manning is that his mistreatment may be on a path to be reduced not because he is an American but because his mother was British. Efforts in Britain are proceeding to get him more humane treatment because of his British ancestry.This help may be too late, though.
He is now medicated to try and slow down the damage being done to him. But of course, I expect the real reason this is being done is so that the damage done to him can serve as a punitive example to others – even being accused of passing secrets will destroy you. For the same reasons floggings were always public – not simply to punish the offender but to scare the rest of the group into docility.
That is why Greenwald states:
If you became aware of secret information revealing serious wrongdoing, deceit and/or criminality on the part of the U.S. Government, would you — knowing that you could and likely would be imprisoned under these kinds of repressive, torturous conditions for months on end without so much as a trial: just locked away by yourself 23 hours a day without recourse — be willing to expose it? That’s the climate of fear and intimidation which these inhumane detention conditions are intended to create.
It’s not just soldiers who would be treated this way. The same happens with civilians.That also explains why Assange is being held, for all intents and purposes without bail, following an international manhunt because a condom broke. He is in solitary confinement also. I imagine women who have been beaten and raped can expect similar treatment when they accuse their attackers? Of course not. He is also being made an example of.
One would imagine that the effort Sweden and Britain has put into keeping him in solitary indicate that they want him because of the massive criminal he is. But legally, all they want him for is questioning. He has not even been indicted. And the crime he is wanted for questioning about – it carries a fine of about $700. In solitary , no bail, an Interpol most wanted without even an official indictment of his crime.
This has nothing to do with any crime he might have committed. This has to do with his political activities, activities that many news institutions have also engaged in. Of course he must be made an example of. There is even discussion of going after the papers that he has worked with.
Daniel Ellsberg rightly became a hero. Those in power learned their lesson and are now treating people simply awaiting questioning with the same sorts of inhumane treatment used by what we formerly called repressive regimes against political prisoners.
That is what centers of power do when they are threatened. They create political prisoners. The more they are threatened the more political prisoners they create. I imagine that Wikileaks will create quite a few more along the way, the Bill of Rights be damned.
by SMJJP
