" This conduct (solitary confinement) by the U.S. Federal and State governments constitutes torture, cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment in violation of the Convention Against Torture and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, both of which are treaties to which the United States is a contracting party," says international legal authority Francis Boyle, professor of the subject at the University of Illinois, Champaign.
Boyle believes, "As citizens of America and human beings in the world, we must do all in our power to terminate such illegal and criminal practices that are daily perpetrated by our own governmental institutions in our name against our fellow citizens and human beings." Boyle is the author of "Defending Civil Resistance Under International Law"(Amazon).
Those supporting Manning need to recognize he is an icon for the bizarre, systemic destruction of tens of thousands of other human beings locked away in perpetual silence by their tormentors, often for mere infractions of prison rules, without the review of any judge or jury. As the ACLU told the TYC, this must be stopped. What action will you take in your community to put an end to it?#
(Sherwood Ross is a Florida-based public relations consultant for good causes and director of the Anti-War News Service. Disclosure: he was editor of "The Long-Term View magazine cited in this article and is a media consultant to the Massachusetts School of Law at Andover.)
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