After spending nine days in solitary confinement in a jail in London, WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange has been released on bail. Meanwhile, Bradley Manning, the whistleblower behind WikiLeaks, sits in solitary confinement for the seventh month.
Assange maintains that he was arrested for political reasons (both he and the mainstream media have consistently downplayed the seriousness of the rape charges that have been brought against him), and as the saga unfolds, the media’s fixation on Assange has only grown.
But as Salon’s Glenn Greenwald points out, much less ink has been spilled over Manning. Greenwald asserts that his treatment is “cruel and inhumane,” even torture, and he makes a convincing case:
“Manning has been held in intensive solitary confinement. For 23 out of 24 hours every day — for seven straight months and counting — he sits completely alone in his cell. Even inside his cell, his activities are heavily restricted; he’s barred even from exercising and is under constant surveillance to enforce those restrictions. For reasons that appear completely punitive, he’s being denied many of the most basic attributes of civilized imprisonment, including even a pillow or sheets for his bed (he is not and never has been on suicide watch).”
Check out the rest of Greenwald’s must-read piece here.