The mother of Bradley Manning, the US soldier accused of leaking data to WikiLeaks, has written to British Foreign Secretary William Hague, asking for British consular officials to visit him in military prison to check on his physical and mental health, which she said was deteriorating.
Manning, 23, has been in custody since May last year in conditions that have provoked widespread criticism of the US military and government. He is held alone in a maximum security cell for 23 hours a day and stripped naked each night apart from a smock.
Manning does not have a British passport or consider himself British, his lawyer said, but because his mother, Susan, is Welsh, the soldier is “British by descent,” the British Foreign Office confirmed this month.
In her letter, Susan Manning wrote that she visited her son in Quantico marine base in Virginia in February, traveling with her sister, Bradley’s aunt and his uncle, “but they were not allowed to see Bradley. I was very distressed by seeing Bradley. Being in prison is having a damaging effect on him physically and mentally. I am worried that his condition is getting worse. I would like someone to visit him who can check on his conditions. If Bradley’s being a British national means that someone from the British embassy can visit him, then I would like to ask if you can make that happen. I do not believe that Bradley is in a position to be able to request this himself, so I am asking as his mother on his behalf.”
Susan Manning, who divorced Bradley’s American father, Brian, when her son was a teenager, also asked Hague for consular support on her own behalf.
“If I try [to] visit Bradley again, can someone from the British embassy help me and other members of Bradley’s family to deal with the US marine authorities and help with any other arrangements we have to make?”
The UN special rapporteur on torture, Juan Mendez, issued a rare reprimand to the US government this week for failing to allow him private access. Manning can meet Mendez only in the presence of a guard, where the soldier’s comments could be used against him in future court martial proceedings.
Mendez said he was acting on a complaint “that the regimen of this detainee amounts to cruel, inhumane or degrading treatment or torture. Until I have all the evidence in front of me, I cannot say whether he has been treated inhumanely.” The Pentagon denied this week he was kept in solitary confinement.
Manning is accused of leaking confidential data to WikiLeaks, on charges that include “aiding the enemy,” a capital crime.
On April 4, British Foreign Office MP Henry Bellingham said the British embassy in Washington had expressed MPs’ concerns about the soldier’s treatment to the administration of US President Barack Obama. The Foreign Office confirmed the foreign secretary’s office had received the letter, and said: “We will carefully consider Mrs Manning’s letter and will reply to her shortly.”
Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) is to visit Russia next month for a summit of the BRICS bloc of developing economies, Chinese Minister of Foreign Affairs Wang Yi (王毅) said on Thursday, a move that comes as Moscow and Beijing seek to counter the West’s global influence. Xi’s visit to Russia would be his second since the Kremlin sent troops into Ukraine in February 2022. China claims to take a neutral position in the conflict, but it has backed the Kremlin’s contentions that Russia’s action was provoked by the West, and it continues to supply key components needed by Moscow for
Japan scrambled fighter jets after Russian aircraft flew around the archipelago for the first time in five years, Tokyo said yesterday. From Thursday morning to afternoon, the Russian Tu-142 aircraft flew from the sea between Japan and South Korea toward the southern Okinawa region, the Japanese Ministry of Defense said in a statement. They then traveled north over the Pacific Ocean and finished their journey off the northern island of Hokkaido, it added. The planes did not enter Japanese airspace, but flew over an area subject to a territorial dispute between Japan and Russia, a ministry official said. “In response, we mobilized Air Self-Defense
CRITICISM: ‘One has to choose the lesser of two evils,’ Pope Francis said, as he criticized Trump’s anti-immigrant policies and Harris’ pro-choice position Pope Francis on Friday accused both former US president Donald Trump and US Vice President Kamala Harris of being “against life” as he returned to Rome from a 12-day tour of the Asia-Pacific region. The 87-year-old pontiff’s comments on the US presidential hopefuls came as he defied health concerns to connect with believers from the jungle of Papua New Guinea to the skyscrapers of Singapore. It was Francis’ longest trip in duration and distance since becoming head of the world’s nearly 1.4 billion Roman Catholics more than 11 years ago. Despite the marathon visit, he held a long and spirited
China would train thousands of foreign law enforcement officers to see the world order “develop in a more fair, reasonable and efficient direction,” its minister for public security has said. “We will [also] send police consultants to countries in need to conduct training to help them quickly and effectively improve their law enforcement capabilities,” Chinese Minister of Public Security Wang Xiaohong (王小洪) told an annual global security forum. Wang made the announcement in the eastern city of Lianyungang on Monday in front of law enforcement representatives from 122 countries, regions and international organizations such as Interpol. The forum is part of ongoing