Protests - Part 40

 Bradley Manning Protest
SF Pride, 2013

Bradley Manning (now Chelsea Manning), born in 1987, was an intelligence analyst in the U.S. Army who leaked 750,000 military and diplomatic documents about the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan to Wikileaks in 2010.  These documents chronicled violations of the U.S Military's Rules of Engagement and thousands of unreported civilian deaths.  One video showed an Army Apache helicopter shooting down Iraqi civilians and a Reuters journalist.

Opponents of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan considered Manning a whistleblower and a hero.  The Army considered him a traitor and charged him with 22 offenses, one of which carried the death penalty.  He was arrested in 2010 and held in prison for three years pending court-martial.

Manning had been living as a gay man, struggling with the Army's "don't ask, don't tell" policy.  To many in the San Francisco community, he was a whistleblower hero, as evidenced by the banner above at the San Francisco Pride parade on June 30th, 2013.  At this time, Manning's court-martial was finally in progress.

After the court-martial, Manning's attorney announced that Manning identified as female and wished to be known as Chelsea Manning.  However, at the time of this protest, this was not known.  All the news coverage of Manning was as Bradley Manning, a gay man, which is why I'm referring to Manning as "him" and as Bradley Manning.

Here's another banner at SF Pride.

And here's a look behind the banner.  Like many San Francisco events, some people were casual about their dress code.

Here are more Bradley Manning protesters at the Pride event.

Despite their signs, they weren't totally stripped; they wore jockstraps.

But that still afforded a nice rear view.

And these protesters were totally stripped.

The depth of support for Manning was made clear by this plane trailing a banner: "OUR LGBTQ HERO - BRADLEY MANNING."

Of course, the event was Gay Pride in San Francisco, and that meant some guys getting naked, whether in support of Manning or not, like this guy ...

and this guy ...

and this guy.

After being found guilty, Manning was sentenced to 35 years in prison.  In January 2017, President Obama commuted Manning's sentence to time served (7 years, at that point), and she was released.  In 2015, during her imprisonment, the Army agreed to provide Manning with hormone treatment but refused gender reassignment surgery.  After her release from prison, Manning finally had the surgery in 2018.  Above is a photo of Chelsea Manning in 2022.

In 2014, Manning was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize, though she didn't win.