The authorities are ill-treating the hero, the whistleblower.

4. 2010/12/19 A Guardian article and some other articles indicate that he is not the same anymore due to the confinement. He has been kept alone in a cell, prohibited from exercising, watched for 23 hours a day, and forced to sleep without a pillow for seven months.

Forced physical and mental inactivity is a torture. Bradley Manning, the suspected Wikileaker, is 23 years old and looks physically fit in photos. He also looks bright and seems to enjoy hanging around with others. Whatever he may have done, this treatment is inhumane. Above all, no-exercise and no-pillow do not make any sense. And why has this mind-cracking treatment been going on for seven months? It is unfair that he is not allowed to explain and defend himself in good condition.

Moreover, for many people all over the world, he is a hero. The mere fact that he exposed to the public the video showing civilians in Iraq, who show no intentions for battle, being killed and injured by shootings from an American helicopter is enough to make him a hero. At least the families of the two Reuters employees who were killed in the attacks now have the evidence of their loved ones' unnatural deaths thanks to his leak. And it is those Americans like Bradley Manning that make people in other countries love America.


sources: Bradley Manning's health deteriorating in jail, supporters say (Guardian) http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/dec/16/bradley-manning-health-deteriorating Bradley Manning is being tortured (Newser) http://www.newser.com/story/107624/bradley-manning-is-being-tortured.html The inhumane conditions of Bradley Manning’s detention (Salon) http://www.salon.com/news/wikileaks/index.html?story=/opinion/greenwald/2010/12/14/manning Inhumane Treatment Of Pfc. Manning - Why? (The Young Turks) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DEKD3EbkVH0&feature=channel http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/apr/10 Bradley Manning: top US legal scholars voice outrage at 'torture' ">/bradley-manning-legal-scholars-letter">http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/apr/10/bradley-manning-legal-scholars-letter</a>