Manning jailed for refusing to testify
Chelsea Manning, who spent more than three years behind bars for leaking US military secrets to WikiLeaks, is back in prison – indefinitely.
She was jailed again in March for refusing to testify in a grand jury investigation targeting the anti-secrecy group.
US district judge Claude Hilton ruled Manning in contempt of court and ordered her held, not as punishment, but to force her testimony in the secret case, according to a spokesman for the US attorney in the Alexandria, Virginia federal court.
"Chelsea Manning has been remanded into federal custody for her refusal to provide testimony,” said the Sparrow Project, a support group for Manning. They quoted Hilton as saying she would be held either “until she purges” or the life of the grand jury ends.
Manning, 31, said she had "ethical" objections to the secrecy of the grand jury system and had answered all questions about her involvement with WikiLeaks years ago.
“I stand by my previous testimony,”she said. "I will not participate in a secret process that I morally object to, particularly one that has been historically used to entrap and persecute activists for protected political speech."
Manning was ordered to testify, in the week before her jailing, in an investigation into actions by WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange in 2010, according to her own description, inadvertent court revelations and media reports.
At the time Manning, a transgender woman then known as Bradley Manning, was a military intelligence analyst. She delivered more than 700,000 classified documents related to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan into WikiLeaks's hands. The documents exposed cover-ups of possible war crimes and revealed internal US communications about other countries. She became a hero to anti-war and anti-secrecy activists, and her actions helped make WikiLeaks a force in the global anti-secrecy movement.
In 2013, she was sentenced to 35 years in prison.
She spent more than three years in an all-male prison, during which she underwent gender transition therapy, spent time in solitary confinement and attempted suicide twice.
President Barack Obama later commuted her sentence, leading to her release in May 2017.
Last month, Manning's lawyer requested home confinement after the judge found her in contempt, according to the US attorney's spokesman.
But she was jailed in the Alexandria Detention Centre which, according to the judge, is experienced in holding transgender inmates and capable of addressing any special personal and medical needs.
The grand jury investigation could eventually herald a case focused on media freedoms.
The US government has been investigating Assange and WikiLeaks for years and has stepped up its efforts against the Britainbased group after it served as an outlet for internal Democratic communications that Washington alleges were stolen by hackers from Russia's GRU intelligence agency during the 2016 US election.
Assange says WikiLeaks's publishing of US secrets is no different than what the mass media does and he should enjoy the same protections as journalists.
Reacting to Manning being sent to jail, WikiLeaks said: "Whistleblowers are now being forced to testify against journalists and sent to jail when they don't co-operate. A new angle in the attack on media freedom.” –
I will not participate in a secret process that I morally object to, particularly one that has been historically used to entrap and persecute activists for protected political speech