http://www.wusa9.com/rss/local_article.aspx?storyid=131351QUANTICO, Va. (WUSA) -- Scores of anti-war protesters braved the weather Monday to try and push past guards at the Marine Corps Base in Quantico.
They aretrying to win the release of Pfc. Bradley Manning, the man accused of handing secret cables over to WikiLeaks. Manning is being held in "maximum confinement" in the Quantico brig.
The protestors insist Manning's a hero -- not a traitor.
The anti-war protestors briefly blocked the exit. "You're on federal property. Please move!" a guard told them, and they finally pulled back to stage their demonstration on the grass near the Iwo Jima statue.
The protest was organized by activist Pat Elder and the Defending Dissent Foundation, among others. The demonstrators thought Martin Luther King Day was a good day to make a point about what they see as the military's violation of Bradley Manning's civil rights.
"Arrest the real criminals!" yelled one demonstrator.
Another told the guards, "We've got the Constitution on our side!"
While WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange holds news conferences and serves a kind of high tech house arrest at a luxurious British mansion, the man who may have made him famous is confined to a six by twelve foot jail cell at Quantico in virtual isolation as a national security risk.
"Twenty three hours a day in a small cell, woken up every five minutes," complained Colleen Rowley, the former FBI special agent and 9/11 whistleblower who joined the first part of the protest outside FBI headquarters.
The Justice Department is still trying to figure out a charge to lodge against Assange. Manning on the other hand is facing as much as 52 years in prison for leaking 100s of thousands of documents he allegedly dubbed while serving as a low-level Army intelligence analyst.
The material includes a video of an American helicopter crew killing two Reuters photojournalists and ten other people in Baghdad.
"We believe that Bradly Manning will be seen eventually as a hero, as a whistleblower," says organizer Pat Elder.
"If you want to stop this war, give information to the public so they can say to Congress, stop this war, that's a supervening value," says former CIA analyst Ray McGovern, who was also among the protestors.
A Marine spokesman rejects the allegations of mistreatment... saying Manning's jailers are treating exactly the same as any other national security detainee.
Manning's lawyer has asked for his pre-trial release. The allegations of mistreatment have drawn the attention of the UN's special investigator on torture, who's sent a formal inquiry to the State Department.
Written by Bruce Leshan
9News Now & wusa9.com
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