Alfred de Zayas - Chelsea Manning in jail .. again (English)

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Chelsea Manning was taken into custody March 8th for refusing to answer questions before a secret grand jury about Wikileaks/Julian Assange.
In this interview professor of international law and human rights expert Alfred de Zayas talks about the grand jury system and puts the situation of Manning in perspective of human rights and international law. De Zayas: ‘what we have here is a classical case of law-fare ... a whistleblower who already did several years and had her sentence commuted was locked up again for refusing to testify against a publisher and publishing org’.

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Chelsea Manning was put in jail for contempt of court after she claimed her 1st, 4th and 6th amendment rights. I asked mr de Zayas’ opinion on the legality of this court calling her to testify and their claim she is in contempt for not willing to anwer questions, while in her situation. Chelsea Manning was convicted in 2013 by a military court for whistleblowing information to Wikileaks - ‘which should have gotten her a human rights award’ - (de Zayas). She instead served 7 years of a 35 year conviction until her early release by then president Obama in 2017.

'In late January 2019, Manning was subpoenaed to testify before a federal grand jury in a sealed case out of the U.S. District Court in the Eastern District of Virginia -- the same district in which the government recently inadvertently revealed the existence of a sealed indictment against WikiLeaks publisher Julian Assange. On Friday, after refusing to answer the grand jury’s questions, U.S. District Judge Claude Hilton found Manning in contempt of court and ordered her to be held in jail until she decides to testify or until the grand jury concludes its work -- which could be up to 18 months, a lawyer for Manning said.'

Manning: "I responded to each question with the following statement: ‘I object to the question and refuse to answer on the grounds that the question is in violation of my First, Fourth, and Sixth Amendment, and other statutory rights," Manning said in a statement."All of the substantive questions pertained to my disclosures of information to the public in 2010 — answers I provided in extensive testimony, during my court-martial in 2013," the statement said.

de Zayas OHCR press statements on Manning, Assange and whistleblower protection:

sources, articles:


 
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