Manning Attempted Suicide:The Solution is Solitary Confinement
What they have done to this very young private, between the US Army and Wikileaks Assange is inhumane and simply wrong particularly coming from an institution that knows better. As for Assange we already know he is a sociopath but he has even offered to surrender if the US let this mentally defective man out. May be Assange doesn’t mean it but if be he does, we will never find out. Assange 1000 times more valuable than Manning would be a trophy for the US but this will not become a fact.
Coming back to the abuse this young private has gone through in our army jail is inexcusable. If anyone had any doubts about how he is been treated this last decision to put someone in permanent solitary, someone who is mentally not able to cope goes beyond any crime he has done. It would have been better to give him the death penalty than to make someone suffer a daily living in this condition.
Chelsea Manning should be in treatment by capable psychiatrists. Solitary is the last thing he needs. A shame! That is the reason when this government accuses others of inhuman treatment of political prisoners as well as criminal prisoners they point to cases like this in which the US is a hypocrite, no better than the worse with the exception he is not being water boarded or beaten as far as we know and we don’t know because people are not aloud to visit him. Alright don’t let him out but get him the psychiatric help he needs. If he was in a civilian jail his lawyers would have already brought the case to an appeals court but being in a military jail you have no such luxury.
The Washington Post reports the following:
Prison officials have decided U.S. Army Private Chelsea Manning should spend at least 7 days in solitary confinement after she attempted to take her own life earlier this year in the midst of serving a 35-year sentence for sharing classified materials with the website WikiLeaks, her attorney said Friday.
Members of an administrative disciplinary board in Fort Leavenworth, Kansas handed the soldier a 14-day stint in solitary with seven days suspended after finding Manning guilty of two counts during a hearing Thursday held in response to her recent suicide attempt, according to a statement circulated by her lawyer, Chase Strangio of the American Civil Liberties Union.
“I am feeling hurt. I am feeling lonely. I am embarrassed by the decision. I don’t know how to explain it,” the soldier said in the statement.
Manning, 28, was found unresponsive inside her prison cell on the morning of July 5 and taken to a nearby hospital before being returned to the disciplinary barracks at Fort Leavenworth. She later learned that she was being investigated over the incident and faced indefinite solitary confinement as a result of her actions.
The three-member disciplinary board found the soldier guilty Thursday on charges of “conduct which threatens” and “prohibited property.” She was acquitted of a third charge related to the prison’s decision to deploy a specialized team to her cell upon learning of her suicide attempt.
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