PayPal Backs Down, Reinstates Account for Supporters of Bradley Manning
Apparently reacting to enormous backlash from supporters and criticism in the media, PayPal has reinstated the account of Courage to Resist, an organization which has partnered with the Bradley Manning Support Network to raise funds for the defense of accused WikiLeaks whistleblower Bradley Manning. The change in account status came only hours after the nonprofit organization published a press release drawing attention to the matter. Over 10,000 people signed the petition hosted by Firedoglake today urging PayPal to reinstate the charitable account, while many more supporters called PayPal directly to voice their criticisms.
Within hours, PayPal responded — reinstating the account so that Courage to Resist and the Bradley Manning Support Network can continue their work.
Jeff Paterson, Project Director of Courage to Resist and member of the Bradley Manning Support Network’s steering committee, provided the following statement:
We have spent nearly a month trying to resolve this matter with senior PayPal staff. Only after a conference call in which their chief compliance officer bluntly stated that our account would be permanently restricted and our funds returned in 180 days did we issue this morning’s statement on the matter.
I little while ago I received an email from the PayPal machine, “Hello Courage to Resist, Our review is complete and we have restored your account.” Upon logging into the PayPal account, we’re now greeted with, “Your Account Access is Back in Regular Standing. Thank you for taking the steps to return your account to regular standing…”
Thank you to all of our supporters – many of whom contacted PayPal individually or signed the petition hosted by Firedoglake – who helped us restore our account. We are extremely grateful to everyone who raised their voice today. While PayPal was never a primary channel for our online donors, it is especially valuable to our international supporters who do not use US-based credit cards or checks. I hope you will now help us get back to our real work in support of accused WikiLeaks whistle-blower Bradley Manning.
- Stop the extreme, inhumane and illegal pre-trial punishment of Bradley Manning
- Ensure that Bradley Manning receives top-notch legal representation from the lawyer of his choice
- Stop any effort by the United States government to hold a secret court martial trial, unchecked by public and media oversight
- Free Bradley Manning!
Do more to help Bradley Manning!
Make a donation to support our work
While I am glad to hear that PP backed down, I continue to think they should be shunned by decent people. Let us recall that it was the same PP that withdrew its business from Wikileaks. For me–as with Amazon–this settles the matter. Visa (another anti-Wiki business) is harder, as it’s on my debit card…but I’ve learned to write old-fashioned checks more than I had in decades, and the satisfaction of denying these scumbags their ounce of flesh each time I avoid using the card, is truly satisfying.
And now, let’s help Bradley Manning.
Ditto Daniel.
Trying to cut down on PayPal in the future. It’s not easy to avoid them. Same goes for Amazon.com. PayPal and Amazon have every right to decline their services to anyone they don’t like. Let’s treat them in kind. Bradley Manning (if he is really the source) deserves a medal that he would, of course, refuse. Least we can do is support the guy. He is paying a high price for having a conscience.
I dropped my Pay Pal account when they dropped Julian Assange.
So happy to hear this! The support for Bradley Manning continues to swell worldwide, thanks to the dedicated efforts by the Bradley Manning Support Network, Courage to Resist, David House and many others. I hope all these efforts are able to be conveyed to Manning to keep his spirits up.
Paypal barely escaped a backlash from anonymous. i guess they haven’t forgotten the events of last year. we do not forgive, we do not forget, expect us
Our small firm informed yesterday all our international customers,that we are stoped to accept pay-pal payments.
We will inform about changes,but keep our hand on the puls.
Thank you very much for your fight for Brad and for informing us,what we can do to be usefull.
Sergey,Berlin
P.S.-we did try to use the button “donate by pay-pal“,but was`t successfull-would be greate to know the e-mail adress of the Found,registered at pay-pal,to try im manual way
i’m sure most of you realize that amazon, paypal, visa, etc are not the real culprits, but that they were pressured/coerced by the US government to do what they did, but still they lose points for giving in to the pressure…
Guess what? the link to donate isnt working!
I’m glad, for Manning’s sake, that PayPal reversed its ridiculous policy. However, until they reinstate donations to WikiLeaks & Julian Assange, I’m not using their service (nor getting a new MasterCard, for that matter)!
Since when did it become any of PayPal’s business whatsoever where you are spending the money you get? This is a clear case of an unjustifiable, politically motivated action against you by PayPal that caused you loss. Sue them and properly finance your operations.
What is also so brilliant about this is that it shows just how much (from such a little at first) support is growing every day, and what a huge problem the powers that be have landed themselves with.
Bradley’s case (and the truths he allegedly exposed, which are running and running and running…)seems to me to have the potential to move mountains; his whole situation feels like a real catalyst for shifting and uprooting some of the rotten corruption and lies which govern the very heart of policy; this is MASSIVE.
And what a gift to have such an iconically innocent face….they must be gnashing their teeth. We must be so vigilant for their anger is a truly terrifying thing.
Let us never underestimate the danger; people like Bradley die at their hand.
WITNESS
and it has cost you
every day intensifies
their wrath poured out on you
they break you
in a 12 x 8
they care so much they concentrate their fate in you
hating you
as though their souls depend on it
they send you endless missives of their bile
revile and batter you
as though their blows could make you
take it back again
retract and swallow down again
your penny whistle witness to the hell in them
as if persistence could dispel in them
the demons you’ve disturbed in them
the darkness that was feasting in the heart of them
that ate the light in them
that you have torched into a blaze upon a hill
against the blackest of our deaths
and into which
you stepped yourself
and still they think that killing you
is all they really have to do
to vacuum up the secrets
freefalling
from the shelf
This is great!
But I really think it’s about time to start using other means of asking for donations! You/Courage to Resist should use many different systems, like Flattr, WePay, Bitcoin, and others IMHO.
See! People Power works. A million teaspoons can move a mountain. I cancelled Paypal & Amazon over WikkiLeaks. I have been asking vendors to sign up to Google Checkout, so that I can still buy their stuff, with some success, I may add.
Paypal, Ebay, Amazon, alternatives exist. Make them stronger and better by voting with your wallet.
Wow, Violet. You’re giving serious modern competition to this, the 1840′s verse that presaged the U.S. civil war:
…
Truth forever on the scaffold, Wrong forever on the throne,–
Yet that scaffold sways the future, and behind the dim unknown,
Standeth God within the shadow, keeping watch above his own.
…
Then to side with Truth is noble when we share her wretched crust,
Ere her cause bring fame and profit, and ’tis prosperous to be just;
Then it is the brave man chooses, while the coward stands aside,
Doubting in his abject spirit, till his Lord is crucified,
And the multitude make virtue of the faith they had denied.
–James Russel Lowell (1819-1891), “The Present Crisis”
By the way, Martin Luther King used other parts of “The Present Crisis” in some of his writings.
As he himself noted, one of those parts, slightly edited, also appears in a Protestant hymn, now rarely sung, that begins:
“Once to every man and nation comes the moment to decide;
In the strife of Truth with Falsehood, for the good or evil side…”
I cancelled my PP account a long time ago.
We all should, a payment provider with a political agenda is wrong.
Time to switch to another payment system.
Bradley ..success you did the right thing to expose the fascist government’s war crimes.
Paypal is becoming the uncool means of paying for things on the Internet. This episode and shutting down donations to Wikileaks show that Paypal is just another corporate tool of politicians. I’ll be going with alternate services whenever I can.
Don’t know if the information in this article is still valid but the options to PP are worth trying:
http://readersupportednews.org/off-site-news-section/368-wikileaks/4224-6-companies-that-havent-wussed-out-of-working-with-wikileaks
I have also stopped all processing of PayPal through our site. They seem to think they can turn on and off peoples account as they wish. Now I have turned off theirs.
Free Bradley Manning!
congrats for the PayPal reinstatement. Good work!!!
While it is true that the government is the root of the problem, those companies succumbed to pressure. Allowing a crime is almost as horrible as initiating it.
What the hell is PayPal’s problem?? First Julian/Wikileaks then Courage to Resist!!
I also deleted my paypal and amazon account when they dropped Julian.
If it is from pressure form the US govt then why don’t they grow some balls and stand up for themselves FFS!
Ps- Violet, that poem was incredible.
I am greatly relieved that public pressure brought PayPal to its senses on Bradley Manning Support, but wonder why we were not able to get the same kind of result for Julian Assange.
In any case, what is being done to require better treatment of Bradley Manning? I am very worried about his sanity — if I’d been held under the conditions he’s been held under, I’d have been insane long before 276 days.
I rang paypal on Friday (from Australia) and would’nt give up until I spoke to the right person.It took at least half an hour to get the right person but determination won and I got to voice my disgust in person. People power at it’s best!
Paypals business practices are corrupt they regularly withhold money for days in feigned disputes – Profit making at the expense of customers and very poor consumer service.
Anre says Paypal withholds money inappropriately. Curious about this, I Googled “paypal dilatory” and found
http://www.consumeractiongroup.co.uk/forum/showthread.html?242024-Paypal-Acting-Fraudulently-Huge-Fraud-Ongoing
…so I guess there’s reason to believe there’s an “arrogance of power” situation at Paypal. One can sneer at “bottom feeders” — check-cashing/loan-dealing storefronts and the like — unless and until one has lived at the bottom of the economy, and one knows the helpless feeling of having no defense against the rapaciousness of those whom one must “trust” in order to eat. Creating that helpless feeling is part of the bottom-feeding game; the fatalism thus induced in the customers is good for business.
It is not difficult to see a connection between the arrogance of power in the “bottom feeding” game, and the arrogance of power exercised in discriminating against certain specific transactions, such as contributions to Manning’s defense. The “little people” don’t deserve respect; their purpose is to be abused. Bottom feeders believe the little people should respect the powers that be. If the powerful have put Manning in jail, it must be for a Very Good Reason. After all, the main purpose of law enforcement is to protect the property of those who have property.
As one of the little people myself, I can only agree with R. Crumb’s famous observation, “We are all niggers, now.” For me, these words are liberating and overflowing with optimism. We will know things have changed when those words have become a proud slogan for people of all colors. We could all do much worse than to emulate the immense fortitude, spiritual indefatigability, and righteous nonviolence of generations of African Americans. And we can always use more leadership of that rare quality, too.
FYI, It looks like you still can’t donate to this site via paypal. I just tried and had to use my visa instead.
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