UN Official Calls Chelsea Manning’s Re-jailing “Torture”

As part of our Queerly Defiant series, Out-FM co-host Bob Lederer interviews Moira Meltzer-Cohen, attorney for Chelsea Manning, and a queer longtime defender of U.S. political prisoners and others disenfranchised people needing legal representation. 

Ways to Support Chelsea Manning:
•    Sign the Petition: Free Chelsea Manning Now (to the judge who both incarcerated and fined her)
•    Here Are Five Ways to Support Chelsea Manning in 2020
•    Webpage to donate to Chelsea Manning’s legal defense expenses

Background on Chelsea Manning's latest incarceration

As many are aware, Chelsea Manning, former Army intelligence analyst, whistleblower, and trans woman, has been jailed since March 2019 when she – taking the principled position of noncollaboration with repressive institutions that’s been upheld by scores of radical activists before her -- refused to answer questions before a federal grand jury. In her case, the body was sitting in Alexandria, VA and investigating the publishing by Wikileaks of the files she provided them in 2010. She was immediately held in civil contempt by federal judge Claude Hilton and jailed. If she does not change her mind, she will remain in prison until September of this year.

Listeners may recall that in 2010 when Chelsea Manning was stationed in Iraq, she released nearly 750,000 confidential military and diplomatic documents to Wikileaks, including revelations of U.S. war crimes and support for torture, repression and corruption in Iraq, Tunisia, and other nations. She was arrested, held for long periods in solitary confinement – and subjected to treatment later described as torture by the UN’s Special Rapporteur on Torture—who at the time was Juan Mendez. Ultimately Ms. Manning was court-martialed on a long list of charges. In a statement at the time, she said she had leaked the cables "to show the true cost of war" and pled guilty to many of the charges -- but was nonetheless tried on all 22 charges, and convicted of 17 of them, including espionage & theft. She was sentenced to a draconian and 35 years, unprecedented for a case of leaking. She applied for clemency, and with the support of a worldwide campaign, outgoing
Pres. Obama commuted her sentence after 7 years and she was released in
May 2017. Ms. Manning has now been jailed a second time for 10 months and counting.

An article from the Sparrow Project, a public interest newswire, reported the following on Jan. 2, 2020:

This week Nils Melzer, the United Nations’ Special Rapporteur on torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment published a letter to the U.S. government dated November 1, 2019, condemning the incarceration of Chelsea Manning, calling such coercive confinement “torture” in violation of international law, and recommending her immediate release. He also recommends that any disproportionate fines levied against her be cancelled….

Special Rapporteur Melzer said: “…I recommend that Ms. Manning’s current deprivation of liberty be promptly reviewed in light of the United States’ international human rights obligations. Should my assessment regarding its purely coercive purpose be accurate, I recommend that Ms. Manning be released without further delay, and that any fines disproportionate to the gravity of any offence she may have committed be cancelled or reimbursed.”

The letter was announced by Melzer via Twitter, stating: “…the continued detention of [using Ms. Manning’s Twitter handle] @xychelsea is not a lawful sanction but an open-ended, progressively severe coercive measure amounting to torture & should be discontinued & abolished without delay.”

In the letter, Melzer also condemns the United States’s practice of what he considers to be “prolonged coercive confinement” which “involves the intentional infliction of progressively severe mental and emotional suffering for the purposes of coercion and intimidation at the order of judicial authorities.” He added that “victims of prolonged coercive confinement have demonstrated post-traumatic symptoms and other severe and persistent mental and physical health consequences.”

Although Special Rapporteur Melzer has requested a clarifying response from the United States, he makes clear his settled conclusion that the practice of coercive confinement violates international human rights law, and recommends Ms. Manning’s immediate release pending any response or investigation. In the two months since the letter was conveyed to the United States, Ms. Manning has remained confined, and the daily fines imposed upon her have continued to accrue.

Chelsea Manning herself said: “My long-standing objection to the immoral practice of throwing people in jail without charge or trial, for the sole purpose of forcing them to testify before a secret, government-run investigative panel, remains strong. Nearly every other legal system in the world condemns coercive confinement, and long ago replaced secret grand juries with public hearings. I am thrilled to see the practice of coercive confinement called out for what it is: incompatible with international human rights standards. Regardless, even knowing I am very likely to stay in jail for an even longer time, I’m never backing down.”

Moira Meltzer-Cohen, Manning’s attorney, said: “Special Rapporteur Melzer has issued a legally rigorous condemnation of the practice of coercive confinement, and of Ms. Manning’s confinement in particular. While the United States has so far failed to live up to its human rights obligations, I remain hopeful that the government will reconsider its policies in light of the UN’s admonition.

“In any case, there can be no further doubt that Ms. Manning has the courage of her convictions, and will never agree to testify before a grand jury, even at great personal cost. As Special Rapporteur Melzer notes, since her confinement is not having the intended coercive effect, she must be released.”

Statements Chelsea Manning Made When Originally Incarcerated (Mar. 2019)

After appearing before the grand jury, Manning issued a statement that said in part, “All of the substantive questions pertained to my disclosures of information to the public in 2010—answers I provided in extensive testimony during my court-martial in 2013. I responded to each question with the following statement: ‘I object to the question and refuse to answer on the grounds that the question is in violation of my First, Fourth, and Sixth Amendment, and other statutory rights.’”

In another statement issued before her incarceration, Manning 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.”

Notes from the Sparrow Project

1. Definition of “torture” — as outlined in Article one of the Convention against Torture and other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (CAT), as described by S.R. Nils Melzer in his letter:

“torture means any act by which severe pain or suffering, whether physical or mental, is intentionally inflicted on a person for such purposes as obtaining from him or a third person information or a confession, punishing him for an act he or a third person has committed or is suspected of having committed, or intimidating or coercing him or a third person, or for any reason based on discrimination of any kind, when such pain or suffering is inflicted by or at the instigation of or with the consent or acquiescence of a public official or other person acting in an official capacity, it does not include pain or suffering arising only from, inherent in or incidental to lawful sanctions”.

(Note: Melzer clarifies, in the letter, on page 2, that he does not think such practices fall under CAT’s “lawful sanctions” exception.)

2. List of international human rights laws that the U.S. practice of coercive confinement is in violation of, as described by Special Rapporteur Nils Melzer in his letter:
•    Convention against Torture and other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (CAT) (Articles 1, 2, 15 and 16)
•    International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR); ratified by the United States of America in 1994 and 1992 respectively (Articles 2, 7 and 9)
•    Human Rights Council Resolution 16/23
•    Human Rights Council Resolution 34/19
•    Human Rights Council Resolution 25/13
•    General Assembly Resolution 68/156

Controversy at SAGE Housing Project

Naomi Brussel interviews Michael Adams of SAGE. SAGE is the country's largest and oldest organization dedicated to improving the lives of LGBT elders. Recently Brooklyn Bourogh President Eric Adams speaking at the ribbon-cutting ceremony for a new LGBT public housing projects in Brooklyn & the Bronx, in which he makes remarks critical of the occupants being outsiders and gentrifiers. (interviews starts at 29:30 in above file) Click on link for more.

Controversy at SAGE Housing Project

Naomi Brussel interviews Michael Adams of SAGE. SAGE is the country's largest and oldest organization dedicated to improving the lives of LGBT elders. Recently Brooklyn Bourogh President Eric Adams speaking at the ribbon-cutting ceremony for a new LGBT public housing projects in Brooklyn & the Bronx, in which he makes remarks critical of the occupants being outsiders and gentrifiers. (interviews starts at 29:30 in above file)

In an article on gaycitynews.com, it was reported that: "Stonewall House is now home to seniors 62 years and older, 77 percent of whom are people of color. All residents have incomes below 50 percent of the area’s median household income, 25 percent of the apartments were set aside for formerly homeless seniors, and 54 of the 145 units were reserved for residents of NYCHA or those on the waiting list for city public housing."

The GCN  article goes on to report: "Yet from the get-over of his remarks, Adams griped that he is “concerned about the diversity” in the new development and said nearby residents have complained that Stonewall House is a “pretty building on NYCHA (New York City Housing Authority) property.”

“I don’t want to see beautiful floors like this and lead paint over there,” he said. “I don’t want to see rodents over there and comfort here.”

He did not mention that many incoming residents are arriving from NYCHA apartments." Many were perplexed that he criticized the project on these grounds.

NYCHA provides housing for low- and moderate-income residents of NYC's 5 bouroughs.