Poster of the Week

Heroism 
A Ride Till The End (ARTTE)
Digital Print, 2011
Arkansas 

SIGN DANIEL ELLSBERG’S PETITION TO FREE BRADLEY MANNING

http://www.bradleymanning.org/featured/sign-daniel-ellsbergs-petition-to-free-bradley-manning-2

United States Army Pfc. Bradley Manning (born 1987), held since May 2010, was sentenced today to 35 years for leaking classified documents to WikiLeaks an anti-secrecy website. These documents include a video showing a U.S. Apache helicopter crew killing unarmed civilians and two Reuters journalists in Iraq. The pilots then kill an Iraqi Good Samaritan, who, with his children, had stopped to help the wounded. The American pilots seem cheerful and trigger-happy. They joke about the sounds a tank makes rolling over a corpse. For releasing this and other war crimes committed by the U.S., Manning was tortured and held in solitary confinement for the first 10 months of his arrest until public pressure helped end this illegal phase of his imprisonment. Many consider him to be a hero following in the footsteps of Daniel Ellsberg who released the Pentagon Papers exposing U.S. government lies about the Viet Nam War.

This poster was originally created for Bradley Manning Solidarity Weekend on April 9-10, 2011, organized by A Ride Till The End (ARTTE). Events were held in 13 cities across the country, including New Orleans.  The weekend was “Bradley Manning: Rebel With a Cause Bicycle Tour,” a 444-mile ride which began in March 21, 2011 in and ended in Nashville, Tennesee on April 8th, to raise awareness and funds for Bradley Manning's defense. The graphic was available for download on the organizations website. ARTTE is a speaking bureau/performance art collective of veterans and artists riding bicycles around the U.S. raising awareness about the situation in Afghanistan and related issues until the Afghanistan occupation ends. http://www.operationawareness.org/ 

Additional sources

Democracynow.org has covered Bradley Manning extensively. http://www.democracynow.org/2013/6/4/bradley_manning_trial_wikileaks_lawyer_sees

http://readersupportednews.org/opinion2/370-wikileaks/17774-bradley- manning-a-soldier-for-truth-on-trial 

Sign the petition to award Bradley Manning the Nobel Peace Prize:

http://act.rootsaction.org/p/dia/action/public/?action_KEY=7612 

Watch a short video titled: "I AM BRADLEY MANNING" At: www.iam.bradleymanning.org

Featuring: Daniel Ellsberg, Oliver Stone, Alice Walker, Phil Donahue, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Russell Brand, Tom Morello, Wallace Shawn, Moby, Michael Ratner, Lt. Dan Choi, Matt Taibbi & Many Others

Poster of the Week

Blowing the Whistle on a War Crime is Not a Crime

Bradley Manning Support Network

Bradleymanning.org

Couragetoresist.org

2010-2011

Private Bradley Manning in 1st Court Appearance

Alleged U.S. Army whistleblower Private Bradley Manning is scheduled to make his first court appearance December 16, 2011, after being held for more than a year and a half by the U.S. military. Manning was first held in Kuwait, then at Quantico, then at Leavenworth, and was brought to Fort Meade in Maryland for the pre-trial hearing that could last an entire week.

The 23-year-old Manning has been held by the US military since May 2010, charged with multiple counts relating to the leaking of hundreds of thousands of secret U.S. diplomatic cables to the whistleblowing website WikiLeaks in the biggest leak of classified U.S. documents in history.

Manning has not been seen or heard by the public since his arrest. He was initially held on a charge of leaking a classified video to WikiLeaks that showed a 2007 helicopter attack that killed a dozen people in Iraq, including two Reuters employees—a journalist and his driver. Military prosecutors are aiming to show there is sufficient evidence to bring Manning to trial at a general court-martial on 22 criminal charges. If convicted, Manning could face life in prison.

For nearly a year, he was kept in solitary confinement at Quantico for 23 hours a day, checked every five minutes under a so-called "prevention of injury order" and stripped naked at night apart from a smock. He was moved to Leavenworth after months of public outcry that his treatment was torture.

More than 250 of America's most eminent legal scholars signed a letter protesting against Manning’s treatment in military prison, contesting that his "degrading and inhumane conditions" are illegal, unconstitutional and could even amount to torture. The list of signatories includes Laurence Tribe, a Harvard professor who is considered to be America's foremost liberal authority on constitutional law. He taught constitutional law to Barack Obama and was a key backer of his 2008 presidential campaign.

The pre-trial hearing began Friday, December 16, 2011, at Fort Meade in Maryland. the The Bradley Manning Support Network organized a protest outside the gates of Fort Meade in solidarity with the accused soldier. Manning’s court appearance coincides with the completion of the U.S. military withdrawal from Iraq after an eight-year occupation.

Kevin Zeese, an attorney for the Bradley Manning Support Network, said, “The people who should be prosecuted are not Bradley Manning. He’s accused of letting the truth out. He’s not accused of doing any criminal activity. He’s accused of letting the truth out, and he should be given an award for that, not prosecuted. He’s facing the death penalty, potentially. He’s facing the death penalty for exposing war crimes.”

Sources:
http://www.democracynow.org/seo/2011/12/16/bradley_manning_famed_whistleblower_daniel_ellsberg

http://www.democracynow.org/2011/3/3/bradley_manning_hit_with_new_charges

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/apr/10/bradley-manning-legal-scholars-letter

http://www.politico.com/blogs/joshgerstein/0411/Army_moving_Wikileaks_suspect_Bradley_Manning_to_Leavenworth.html