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M20 for Manning Reports/Photos/Youtubes & a Catholic Worker Reflection on it All

Ciaron O'Reilly, Giuseppe Conlon House, Catholic Worker, London | 22.03.2011 08:34 | Terror War | South Coast

A(n Irish Australian based in London) Catholic Worker Reflection on M20 for Brad Manning!

The Catholic Worker (CW) in England primarily consists of three live in communities and extended communites around these experiments carrying out the "acts of mercy" to the homeless and nonviolent resistance resistance to the warmakng state.

There are eight full on/full time live in community members in our three autonomous communities - St. Francis/ Oxford, Giuseppe Conlon House/ London, Farmhouse/ Rickmansworth. Countries of origin of present fulltimers comprise of 2 English, 2 Australian, 1 Irish, 1 Dutch, 1 Swedish and 1 North American. Our movement's orgin, most of its 78 year history and activists, are in the United States. We are located in southern England, there also a handful of CW communities in Belgium, Germany and The Netherlands.

Our involvement with the Bradley Manning and Juian Assange cases began in December, when I was distressed by the lack of response by the British and Irish peace movements to the plight of Welsh/American Manning and Australian Assange being tracked down by the U.S empire for reporting a war crime in Iraq now known as the "Collateral Murder" foootage.
 http://www.collateralmurder.com/

I don't really understand the absence of the anarchist scene in England around these cases! When I joined the anarchist movement in Australia in the '70's, we were told that anarchists were strong on FREE EXPRESSION (even for people we don't agree with, a principled position that distinguished us from the "authoritarian left" in the Queensland civil liberties movement of the 1970's!), PRISONS (abolish them!) and WAR (don't support any of them!). So here are, the three great themes in one package in the Mannng and Assange cases and little sign of the English anarchist cavalry riding to the rescue as yet! The WikiLeaks exposures have been a great boost for FREE SPEECH, Mannng and Assange are looking at beng executed or IMPRISONED for the rest of the lives accused of nonviolent ANTI-WAR resistance. Yet so little solidarity, go figure?

On Nov 20th. 2010, I made up a placard calling for solidarity with Bradley Manning and headed into the "Stop the War" demonstration to spread the word about Bradley. There was no other mention of Bradley, in speech or sign, at the 5,000 strong demonstration!

I also discovered that the last place Bradley was, before being in the war in Iraq or in chains, was Shannon Airport, Ireland where I had been arrested with the Pitstop Ploughshares doing $U.S.2 1/2million disarmament to a U.S. warplane on the cusp of the ' 03 U.S. invasion of Iraq. This connection gave me more impetus to offer pro-active solidarity to Bradley. In my experiences as a prisoner over the last 30 years, in a variety of jurisdictions, I have been the recipient of solidarity from others that has sustained me. I know the significance of solidarity from those first hand experiences.

Within weeks of that Nov 20 anti-war rally, Julian Assange was taken into custody in London and placed in solitary in HMP Wandsworth. Assange is from my state of Queensland, Australia, and although too young for the resistance of the late'70's/early '80's he grew up in the police state that was Queensland. He believes this to be formative and mentioned it in his initial bail hearing at Westminister Magistrates how that formation contributed to his commtment to free speech. These connects also motivated me into the last three months of intense solidarity activism and organising for both Bradley Manning and Julian Assange. This has been balanced by our conitnued nonviolent anti-war resistance at Northwood HQ
 https://www.indymedia.ie/article/98556?search_text=nort...hwood
Dalston Army Showroom
 https://www.indymedia.ie/article/98526?search_text=merr...+over
Ministry of Defence
 https://www.indymedia.ie/article/99207?search_text=ash+...esday
and intervening on the Irish elections
 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4qGexlkuaLU

and also our hospitality work with destitute refugees many fleeing wars generated by arms exports fomr Britain.

I have been shocked by the lack of solidarity for both Manning and Assange from "peace and justce" organisations. One would think that when 2 million people marched in England against this war in '03, they by iimplication called upon members of the military and civil society to resist the war. And that by implication, when people do resist you are obligated to offer what solidarity you can muster! Am I missing something here? I have been moved from anger and outrage (the most they do when "upset" in southen England, it seems, is to express "disquet an dismay" apparently! I've lived in Liverpool during the Dockers Strike, the culture is different there.) by the abandonment of Manning and Assange by the peace movement that incited them to a present state of near paralytic bamboozlement and speechlessness!

In the work around responding to the persecution of Assange we were primarily joined by a radical Christian Australian family who live simply in a motor home in downtown London, also other Australians from the Catholic Worker network in London and a Colombian woman who lived near Woolwich Courts where Assange was being tried. There was a real lack of English people willing to come out and come to court. There were also a handful of members of "Anonymous", WikiLeaks Support and celebrities willing to come and stand with Julian at Court.

In the last month, awareness of Bradley Mannng has grown as the mainstream media including the liberal left Guardian play wedge politics presenting the lie of "Assange as an elitest playboy comfortable in a mansion while Mannng a naieve dupe is being tortured n jail" seems to be their schtick.

Julian Assange is the person in human history who has pissed off the most powerful people in the shortest amount of time that I am aware of - from American warlords to the hip liberal public school boys of the Guardian. As someone who pisses off a lot of people myself, I am impressed!

A few weeks ago, a call came out from the U.S. anti-war folks that they were heading back to Quantco U.S. Marine Base to confront the ongoing torture there (301 days today!) of Bradley Manning and to demand his immediate release. The call went out for solidarity demonstrations around the U.S. and at U.S. embassies around the world!
 http://www.bradleymanning.org/

So the last few weeks has been an experience of organising a March 20 effort at the U.S. embassy in London. Organising on the internet with people you've never met is not ideal. But we all pulled off a good scene last Sunday at the embassy together....Welsh school kidz, "UK Friends of Bradley Mannng", "WISEup for Bradley Manning", PayDay, Catholic Worker and others.

Iraq War S.A.S. combat veteran Ben Griffin, long time CND spokesman Bruce Kent, human rights and gay activist legend Peter Tatchell answered my calls to come to the embassy and speak. Kiwi John McLean answered a Sunday morning call and came into play some Blues on short notice. Pay Day, Welsh folks and Catholic Worker brought some great visuals, Serena (who had bussed in from Scotland for the demonstration) and 16 year old Danny took shifts as standng as a shackled Bradley Manning in front of the embassy, Pay Day Lindi also spoke and led some chantng, Naomi from "UK Friends of Bradley Manning", Pirate Party Loz also addressed the crowd. Also good contributons on the open mike, that followed formalities, by U.S. Air Force veteran Scott Albrecht of the CW Farmhouse, Sr. Susan Clarkson of the Oxford CW who is staging a weekly (Wednesdays 12noon-2pm) for Bradley at the U.S. Embassy through Lent, more folks from the crowd also made strong statements and a Welsh crew did a cover of John Lennon's "Imagine".

The weather was beautiful and the vibe was great. Hopefully Bradley Manning finds our efforts at solidarity siginificant as we find his presence in prison significant. As the Wobblies would say "He's in there for us, We're on the streets for him!"

See you on the road to free Bradley Manning and Julian Assange and end this war,



****SOME SNAPS FORM M20 U.S. EMBASSY, LONDON

*DEMOTIX SLIDESHOW M20 of London Rally for Bradley Manning
 http://www.demotiximages.com/news/631508/london-protest-support-bradley-manning

*PHOTOS/ CW CREW AT U.S. EMBASSY LONDON

CW Sign "Stop Torturing Bradley Manning
 http://www.flickr.com/photos/ukfriendsofbradleymanning/...4010/

CW Shrine for Bradley Manning and Vicitms of the War on Iraq
 http://www.flickr.com/photos/ukfriendsofbradleymanning/...4010/

16 year old Danny as "Bradley Manning" in front of the U.S. embassy
 http://www.flickr.com/photos/ukfriendsofbradleymanning/...4010/

*PHOTOS/ OTHER SPEAKERS
Ben Griffin Iraq Combat Veteran/ British S.A.S., refusenik, mow under hgh court gag order
 http://www.flickr.com/photos/ukfriendsofbradleymanning/...4010/

Kiwi John McLean on blues guitar
 http://www.flickr.com/photos/ukfriendsofbradleymanning/...4010/

Peter Tatchell
 http://www.flickr.com/photos/ukfriendsofbradleymanning/...4010/

Pay Day Lindi
 http://www.flickr.com/photos/ukfriendsofbradleymanning/...4010/

Pirate Party Loz
 http://www.flickr.com/photos/ukfriendsofbradleymanning/...4010/


***REPORTS/PHOTOS/YOUTUBE FROM QUANTICO TO LONDON TO MELBOURNE

U.S./London Embassy BBC Report
 http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-12800705

Italian Friends of Bradey Manning
 http://www.hulot.it/bradley_manning_londra.htm

HAGUE, THE NETHERLANDS
 https://picasaweb.google.com/georgemaschke/RallyInSuppo...link#

SYDNEY, AUSTRALIA
 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GUiimyGMVsQ

MELBOURNE, AUSTRALIA

 http://indymedia.org.au/2011/03/20/melbourne-vigil-join...nning

WASHINGTON D.C. U.S.A. M19 Veterans for Peace at White House
 http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2011/03/19/18675051.php

M19 YOUTUBE Daniel Elsberg's Speech at White House
 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wz82bBaqrAQ

YOUTUBE (1 min) Daniel Elsberg and U.S.and 113 other miitary veterans & anti-war activists arrested at White House demanding the release of Bradley Manning.

QUANTICO

* Zach Choate, Iraq Veterans Against the War: “If you’re an Iraq veteran, you’re all whistleblowers,” said the Army veteran who served from 2005-2008. “These ribbons mean nothing to me anymore. Why even wear them if you go to a foreign place and you start to tell the truth about what was seen? Today we are Bradley Manning, and that’s who I am.”
* Jeff Patterson, Courage to Resist: “We’re not giving up on this case. We have a pre-trial hearing that’s going to be open to the public, and we are going to be back here,” said one of the founders of the Bradley Manning Support Network. “Today there are 30 cities around the world, just like us, gathering to do this. We’re not going to give up.”

At Quantico, Daniel Ellsberg, former Marine, newly released from DC prison: “The Marine Corps motto is ‘Semper fidelis’ – always faithful. But times like these raise the question: faithful to what? What most people don’t realize is the Marines take an oath not to the President, or the Commander in Chief, but solely to support the United States Constitution,” Ellsberg began. He went on to explain that he wished he had leaked earlier, in 1965, when he “could have saved lives.” But now, he said, “I want Bradley Manning’s courage to be contagious.”

David House, Bradley Manning’s friend and Network Steering Committee member:”I hope Obama can hear me,” House said. “I hope he knows that he cannot keep alleged whistleblowers lockedup in solitary confinement for 23 hours a day without exercise! . . . The time is now to act.”

With that, protesters are setting out to march to the Iwo Jima Memorial!

Things have taken a nasty turn at Quantico. As protesters silently moved to march to the Iwo Jima Memorial to lay a wreath to remember the dead, Marine MPs refused to allow all but press and six veterans to proceed on to the Memorial. Prince William County police on the site joined the Marines in attempting to delay the protesters from proceeding, according to live tweeting by Jane Hamsher. In response, protesters laid and sat down on the ground, refusing to move. Police then began arresting protesters one by one and are loading them on to two nearby police buses for booking. Daniel Ellsberg is among those being arrested.

Bradley Manning stickers on police riot shields
 http://twitpic.com/4bk9fb

Riot police move In
 http://www.flickr.com/photos/worldcantwait/

Code Pink Photos & 18 sec vids
Crowd Refuse to leave Quantico
 http://twitpic.com/4bk2r2

MINNEAPOLIS, U.S.A.
 http://www.flickr.com/photos/fibonacciblue/sets/7215762...8617/


Ciaron O'Reilly, Giuseppe Conlon House, Catholic Worker, London
- Homepage: http://www.londoncatholicworker.org

Comments

Hide the following 5 comments

Here's the video of Budapest Hungary for Bradley Manning....

22.03.2011 09:26

Here's the video of Budapest Hungary for Bradley Manning....
 http://vimeo.com/21319347

Budapest for Bradley Manning....
- Homepage: http://vimeo.com/21319347


M20 Hague for Bradley Manning Report

22.03.2011 16:10

Hague M20 for Bradley Manning Report
author by Hague Reportpublication date Tue 22 Mar 2011 05:09:12 PM CDT

The Hague event.

As documented my co-founder of the event T. H.

Rally was attended by approximately 10 people. In the end a few people came over and joined in. Small amount but attention was received. Many thanks were given by those passing by while excepting our flyers and whistles. A photographer came to document the event with both video and photographs. (I will upload them)

Two speeches were held, one in Dutch and one in English by supporter M. E.. Whistles were blown while protesters walked through the small square where they had permission to rally. Posters were carried, flyers passed out together with whistles. Police were present and demanding that all people participating remained in one area. I think their presence only gave the rally more attention.

Some people that were spoken to and received flyers were totally clueless to who Bradley Manning is as the Dutch Media has not given him hardly any attention. As soon though as the name WikiLeaks was mentioned they quickly thought of that 'poor boy being treated so badly by the USG'. So we have learned that his name might not be well known here but his conditions and treatment have not gone unnoticed. Some were even coming up and saying that it was really good that there was a rally for him and wished the participants much success.

It lasted for around 2 1/2 hours. One thing we know for sure is that we will keep rallying. We are working already on the next event which will be held in Amsterdam. We are also sending all information and notices to the media (once more) of the need for more coverage. We hope to have a larger attendance the next time but really I think it was a success before it took place. Just seeing how many new rallies were popping up around the world was a wonderful thing. This is in our opinion just the beginning.

M

Hague


Extensive reports (mainstream and alternative) on Sunday's events

23.03.2011 05:55


This link has extensive reports (mainstream and alternative) on Sunday's events around the U.S. and the world in solidarity with Bradley Manning
 http://www.bradleymanning.org/activism/march-20th-events-update

San Francisco last Sunday

8:15 PM ET: Rainey Reitman reports: “Events in San Francisco were an enormous success. On Saturday, Bradley supporters were in abundance at an anti-war rally that flooded the rainy streets with hundreds of people. The primary Manning support group, led by David Solnit of Courage to Resist, marched in single file with their hands behind their backs as if in prison formation, accompanied by a slow and steady drum beat. We were escorted by police through the pouring rain down the streets of San Francisco, apart from the main rally. Each participant wore a gag with the word “Truth” written on it, and carried a sign around their neck declaring their support for Bradley Manning. On Sunday, a group of about 30 protesters gathered at Yerba Buena Gardens. The group included Veterans for Peace, poets, students, and even members of Anonymous in their signature Guy Fawkes masks. Members of Courage to Resist, Anonymous and Veterans for Peace spoke out about their support for Bradley Manning and decried his inhumane prison conditions.”

Ciaron


Report & Photos - Atlanata, USA, for Bradley Manning

23.03.2011 06:28

Fifteen committed supporters of PFC Bradley Manning gathered at the Gandhi statue on the plaza of the Martin Luther King, Jr. Historic Site Visitor Center at 2 pm Sunday, March 20th to raise awareness about Bradley's dire situation in pretrial custody and to work for his immediate release. Our primary actions included distributing flyers, similar to those in cities around the world, and asking passersby to sign our petition to Congressman John Lewis, a hero of the American Civil Rights movement, to help end Bradley's punitive detention.

We succeeded in engaging many people, some from Atlanta, some visiting from other countries and letting them know about the inhumane conditions under which Bradley is being held and how the information he is accused of leaking has been instrumental in revealing war crimes committed in Iraq and Afghanistan. An office visit with Congressman Lewis is being arranged so that we can deliver our petitions - with almost 100 signatures - to him or his staff in person.

Links
Flickr Set: Atlanta March 20th Vigil in Support of Bradley Manning
 http://www.flickr.com/photos/21808577@N00/sets/72157626201844965

MLK


Bradley Manning : 300 Days -by Loz of Pirate Party Sunday, London, U.S. Embassy

23.03.2011 07:15

Bradley Manning : 300 Days - statement by Loz of Pirate Party who spoke at U.S. Embassy Sun London

Bradley Manning : 300 Days
by Loz Kaye ..

Today sees the depressing milestone that Bradley Manning has been imprisoned for 300 days. I was proud to speak at the rally in support of him on the 20th March outside the US Embassy, like demonstrators across the globe.

For over seven months he has been held in military arrest in conditions that most of us could not imagine enduring. To be confined in a tiny windowless cell. To be held in solitary confinement 23 hours a day. To be forced to stand naked. To be put under intolerable psychological pressure. No wonder that Clive Stafford Smith, director of Reprieve, likened the conditions to those in Guantanamo Bay.

ARTICLE continued......
 http://www.pirateparty.org.uk/blog/2011/mar/22/bradley-...days/

Pirate Party
- Homepage: http://www.pirateparty.org.uk/