Free Bradley Manning Speeches by Marjorie Cohn

San Diego, Sept 19th, 2010 We rallied outside of Horton Plaza downtown San Diego, CA to demand freedom for Bradley Manning. Manning has been accused of leaking information and videos to wikileaks. Check out the movie collateral murder!

The Speaker is Marjorie Cohn: Professor of Law at the Thomas Jefferson School of Law, San Diego, California, author and a former president of the National Lawyers Guild.

We, the Undersigned, call for the immediate release of US Army PFC Bradley Manning, incarcerated as of 18 June 2010.

Media accounts state that Mr. Manning was arrested in late May for allegedly leaking the video of US Apache helicopter pilots killing innocent people and seriously wounding two children in Baghdad, including those who arrived to help the wounded. The video was released by WikiLeaks under the name "Collateral Murder". (CollateralMurder.com) Pfc. Manning is also identified by the Defense Department as a "person of interest" in the investigation into WikiLeaks obtaining 90,000 battlefield reports describing thousands of civilian deaths inflicted by occupation forces in Afghanistan, collusion with warlords, corruption and an unvarnished view of our decade-long war.

If these allegations are untrue, we call upon the US Department of Defense to release Mr. Manning immediately.

If these allegations ARE true, we ALSO call upon the US Department of Defense to release Mr. Manning immediately.

The leaked video, released by WikiLeaks under the title Collateral Murder, clearly shows that official statements from the multinational force in Baghdad that "there is no question that Coalition forces were clearly engaged in combat operations against a hostile force" were blatantly false. The leaker of this video blew the whistle on two crimes: the murder of civilians and an official coverup. Exposing these crimes was a moral and legal obligation and a service to the international community. The leaker deserves our respect and thanks-not prosecution.

We express our support for Mr. Manning in any case, and our admiration for his courage if he is, in fact, the person who disclosed the information. Like in the cases of Daniel Ellsberg, W. Mark Felt, Frank Serpico and countless other whistleblowers before, government demands for secrecy must yield to public knowledge and justice when government crime and corruption are being kept hidden. If the United States government demands to use our tax dollars and our own children to fight this war, then we must demand full disclosure of the facts, no matter how unsettling. We demand that the government stop the misinformation and we honor heroes who fight for transparency.

Free Bradley Manning!

Sincerely,

San Diego Coalition for Peace & Justice (SDCPJ)
San Diego Alliance for marriage Equality (SAME)
Activist San Diego
San Diego Branch of The International Socialist Organization (ISO)
Green Party of San Diego
San Diego Pride at Work
Progressive Democrats of America Metro San Diego Chapter (PDA)
Democracy for America San Diego Meetup
San Diego Chapter of Veterans for Peace (VFP)
Vietnam Veterans Against the War San Diego (VVAW)
The San Diego Puppet Insurgency

FREE BRADLEY MANNING!

On Day 4 of global days of solidarity and support for alleged Wikileaks whistleblower, Pfc. Bradley Manning, San Diego activists & advocates of peace & transparency will take to the streets for a protest and rally calling for the release and justice in the case of this brave young hero or scapegoat and to make our voices heard that
EXPOSING WAR CRIMES IS NOT A CRIME! TRUTH IS ESSENTIAL TO DEMOCRACY!

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