Update 5/15/12: Bradley’s human rights award, Chomsky endorsement, and an interview with Birgitta Jónsdóttir

Daniel Ellsberg speaks out for Bradley

Daniel Ellsberg accepts human rights award on behalf of Bradley Manning. Voters in Global Exchange’s Human Rights award contest chose PFC Bradley Manning as their People’s Choice honoree, for allegedly releasing information in the interest of truth, justice, peace, and democracy. Without WikiLeaks’ documents, which Bradley is accused of releasing, we wouldn’t know about many of the war crimes America has committed overseas, Tunisia might not have revolted when it did, and we might still have U.S. troops in Iraq.

On May 10, since Bradley remains in a cage facing a potential life sentence, Daniel Ellsberg accepted the award on his behalf:

Noam Chomsky endorses Bradley Manning contingent at NATO protest. On May 20, a Free Bradley Manning contingent will march in as part of antiwar protests of the NATO summit in Chicago. Speaking on the summit, longtime activist, linguist, and professor Noam Chomsky encouraged support of the demonstration, specifically endorsing the Bradley Manning contingent:

Birgitta Jónsdóttir on why she supports Bradley Manning and WikiLeaks. Jónsdóttir is an activist and a member of the Icelandic parliament, which nominated Bradley Manning for a Nobel Peace Prize this year. Speaking to journalist Patrick McCurdy, Jónsdóttir explained how valuable WikiLeaks’ releases are:

“I mean, how are we going to end the wars?  We are going to end the wars by knowing what war is. And, that was the beauty and the horror of the Afghan War logs is that you were basically just getting minute by minute snippets out of what war is really about.”

Both McCurdy and Jónsdóttir expressed gratitude to Bradley:

 “[T]he material Bradley Manning (allegedly) released ‘…was an incredibly important gesture for our historical records as humanity.’  I too am certain that history books will treat Bradley Manning with compassion and as a whistleblower; someone who disclosed information about misconduct in the hopes of stopping it.”

As it becomes more pervasively clear that Manning’s (alleged) intentions were to bring transparency and peace to a nation rife with secrecy and war, prosecutors in his case are working to make motivation irrelevant. (Read more…)

"My name is Alex. I’m from Ontario, Canada. I am a student- a teenager. I am the future. I support Bradley Manning because Bradley stood up for what was right and did not hide the truth from those who deserved to know it."

I am Bradley Manning

 

One thought on “Update 5/15/12: Bradley’s human rights award, Chomsky endorsement, and an interview with Birgitta Jónsdóttir

Leave a Reply to Luke weyland Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

You may use these HTML tags and attributes: <a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <cite> <code> <del datetime=""> <em> <i> <q cite=""> <strike> <strong>