February 1st 2012
the entire parliamentary group of The Movement
of the Icelandic Parliament nominated Private
Bradley Manning for the Nobel Peace Prize.
Following is the reasoning we sent to the
committee explaining why we felt compelled to
nominate Private Bradley Manning for this
important recognition of an individual effort to
have an impact for peace in our world.
Our letter to the Nobel Peace Prize Committee:
We have the great honor of nominating Private
First Class Bradley Manning for the 2012 Nobel
Peace Prize. Manning is a soldier in the United
States army who stands accused of releasing
hundreds of thousands of documents to the
whistleblower website WikiLeaks. The leaked
documents pointed to a long history of
corruption, war crimes, and imperialism by the
United States government in international
dealings. These revelations have fueled
democratic uprising around the world, including
a democratic revolution in Tunisia. According to
journalists, his alleged actions helped motivate
the democratic Arab Spring movements, shed light
on secret corporate influence on our foreign
policies, and most recently contributed to the
Obama Administration agreeing to withdraw all
U.S.troops from the occupation in Iraq.
Bradley Manning has been incarcerated for well
over a year by the U.S. government without a
trial. He spent over ten months of that time
period in solitary confinement, conditions which
experts worldwide have criticized as torturous.
Juan Mendez, the United Nations’ Special
Rapporteur on Torture and Cruel, Inhuman and
Degrading Treatment or Punishment, has
repeatedly requested and been denied a private
meeting with Manning to assess his conditions.
The documents made public by WikiLeaks should
never have been kept from public scrutiny. The
revelations – including video documentation of
an incident in which American soldiers gunned
down Reuters journalists in Iraq – have helped
to fuel a worldwide discussion about America’s
overseas engagements, civilian casualties of
war, imperialistic manipulations, and rules of
engagement. Citizens worldwide owe a great debt
to the WikiLeaks whistleblower for shedding
light on these issues, and so I urge the
Committee to award this prestigious prize to
accused whistleblower Bradley Manning.
Sincerely,
Birgitta Jónsdóttir
Margrét Tryggvadóttir
Ţór Saari
Members of the Icelandic Parliament for The
Movement