Bradley Manning

News in Brief

On 25 July, exactly two years after the WikiLeaks release of the Afghan war diaries, the following banners were unfurled at the summit of Snowdon in Wales: ‘Free Bradley Manning’, ‘Don’t shoot the messengers! Free Manning. Free Assange. End the wars.’

WISE Up Action, a solidarity network for Bradley Manning and Julian Assange, held the demo to support US army intelligence analyst Bradley Manning (who has Welsh roots) who has been held for two years in pre-trial detention on charges of leaking secret documents to WikiLeaks.

On 16 August, US supporters of Bradley Manning were arrested while demonstrating at US president Barack Obama’s campaign headquarters in Portland, Oregon, and Oakland, California. Protests were also held in Los Angeles, Las Vegas, and Seattle.

Six people were arrested in Oakland, and another six in Portland, all for refusing to leave the campaign offices.

In Los Angeles, Iraq War veteran Kevin Baker said: ‘Generals say Bradley Manning put lives at risk, but they’re the ones who put us at risk, keeping these things secret and lying us into war.’