Pfc. Bradley Manning, known for handing 700,000 secret documents to whistleblower website WikiLeaks, has recently been cleared of “aiding the enemy” charges, but still faces a maximum sentence of 136 years in military custody.
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In other words, Bradley Manning was found guilty of causing intelligence of the United States to be published on the Internet “wrongfully and wantonly”, having the knowledge that the data in question is accessible to the enemy.
Despite the fact that Manning has already spent almost 3 years in detention (mostly in solitary confinement) and this period will be deducted from the final sentence, it seems that he will be sentenced to many years in military jail. So, it wasn’t much relief that he wasn’t found guilty of “aiding the enemy”.
Manning’s case is known and discussed worldwide, with civil liberties activists, human rights campaigners and journalists claiming that the severity of the charges set an unprecedented shift in the way whistleblowing is treated by the American government.
Julian Assange has issued a statement to call Manning’s trial “a case of national security extremism”, which can’t be tolerated and must be reversed. Assange points out that the last few years have seen the important backlash against the authoritarianism being exercised by the US government, and Bradley’s alleged actions was a reaction against abuse, while Snowden’s actions were a reaction against national security extremism.
While Edward remains in Moscow, being denied the right to travel and the right to asylum, the trial of Manning is validation that going through official channels in the US will have severe implications for Snowden.
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