US whistleblower Chelsea Manning has issued a statement via her lawyers confirming speculation from last week that she required hospital treatment after attempting suicide while in prison.
The former US army intelligence analyst was convicted of leaking US state secrets to Wikileaks while she served in Iraq. She is currently serving 35 years in military custody.
“She knows that people have questions about how she is doing and she wants everyone to know that she remains under close observation by the prison and expects to remain on this status for the next several weeks,” Manning’s lawyers said in a statement.
The original information was leaked against Manning’s wishes, her lawyers confirmed.
Though she would have preferred to keep her private medical information private, and instead focus on her recovery, the government’s gross breach of confidentiality in disclosing her personal health information to the media has created the very real concern that they may continue their unauthorized release of information about her publicly without warning.
The incident comes in the midst of a protracted legal battle with military authorities over what Manning describes as an unprecedented and “grossly unfair” sentence.
Manning is a trans woman, and is also running a legal suit in which she is pressing for the right to live out her gender identity while in prison. She is currently given access to hormones and cosmetics, but must keep her hair short as per military regulations, and is still confined in a male military prison in Fort Leavenworth, Kansas.
Source: The Guardian.
Photo: Supplied.
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