Wikileaks: Is Pte. Manning being treated fairly?

Daniel Ellsberg, the former military analyst who in 1971 leaked the Pentagon Papers, speaks to protesters gathered March 20, near Dumfries, Va., to support U.S. Army Pte. Bradley Manning. (Robert A. Martin/The Free Lance-Star/Associated Press)

By CBC News

Britain risks losing its "moral authority" by not speaking out about the treatment of a U.S. army private accused of providing thousands of sensitive documents to the WikiLeaks website, an MP says.

Welsh MP Ann Clwyd spurred a debate in the British Parliament on Monday night about Bradley Manning, 23, a former intelligence analyst who is being held in a military detention centre in Quantico, Va. He was arrested in May 2010.

Staff at the British Embassy in Washington will be instructed to question the U.S. State Department about why Manning is being kept in solitary confinement for 23 hours a day and is stripped naked each night and given a suicide-proof smock to wear to bed, Foreign Office Minister Henry Bellingham said.

He is checked by guards every five minutes and must respond when they check on him. He is not allowed to sleep between 5 a.m. (7 a.m. on weekends) and 8 p.m., and if he tries to, he must stand or sit up, says his lawyer, David Coombs.

He has no contact with other prisoners, even during the hour each day he is allowed out of his cell.

Coombs has complained that his client's treatment is degrading and punitive, a charge the U.S. military has denied.

Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International have also raised concerns about Manning's treatment.

Read more.

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