Bradley Manning’s shameful treatment.

“More than 250 of America's most eminent legal scholars have signed a letter protesting against the treatment in military prison of the alleged WikiLeaks source Bradley Manning, contesting that his "degrading and inhumane conditions" are illegal, unconstitutional and could even amount to torture.”

“The list of signatories includes Laurence Tribe, a Harvard professor who is considered to be America's foremost liberal authority on constitutional law. He taught constitutional law to Barack Obama and was a key backer of his 2008 presidential campaign.

Tribe joined the Obama administration last year as a legal adviser in the justice department, a post he held until three months ago.

He told the Guardian he signed the letter because Manning appeared to have been treated in a way that "is not only shameful but unconstitutional" as he awaits court martial in Quantico marine base in Virginia."

"Bradley Manning is the soldier charged with leaking US government documents to Wikileaks. He is currently detained under degrading and inhumane conditions that are illegal and immoral.

For nine months, Manning has been confined to his cell for 23 hours a day. During his one remaining hour, he can walk in circles in another room, with no other prisoners present. He is not allowed to doze off or relax during the day, but must answer the question "Are you OK?" verbally and in the affirmative every five minutes. At night, he is awakened to be asked again "Are you OK?" every time he turns his back to the cell door or covers his head with a blanket so that the guards cannot see his face. During the past week, he was forced to sleep naked and stand naked for inspection in front of his cell, and for the indefinite future must remove his clothes and wear a "smock" under claims of risk to himself that he disputes.

The sum of the treatment that has been widely reported is a violation of the eighth amendment's prohibition of cruel and unusual punishment and the fifth amendment's guarantee against punishment without trial. If continued, it may well amount to a violation of the criminal statute against torture, defined as, among other things, "the administration or application … of … procedures calculated to disrupt profoundly the senses or the personality."

In an Orwellian twist, the spokesman for the brig commander refused to explain the forced nudity "because to discuss the details would be a violation of Manning's privacy".

The administration has provided no evidence that Manning's treatment reflects a concern for his own safety or that of other inmates. Unless and until it does so, there is only one reasonable inference: this pattern of degrading treatment aims either to deter future whistleblowers, or to force Manning to implicate WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange in a conspiracy, or both.

If Manning is guilty of a crime, let him be tried, convicted and punished according to law. But his treatment must be consistent with the Constitution and the Bill of Rights. There is no excuse for his degrading and inhumane pretrial punishment. As the state department's PJ Crowley put it recently, they are "counterproductive and stupid". And yet Crowley has now been forced to resign for speaking the plain truth.

The WikiLeaks disclosures have touched every corner of the world. Now the whole world watches America and observes what it does, not what it says.

President Obama was once a professor of constitutional law, and entered the national stage as an eloquent moral leader. The question now, however, is whether his conduct as commander-in-chief meets fundamental standards of decency. He should not merely assert that Manning's confinement is "appropriate and meet[s] our basic standards", as he did recently. He should require the Pentagon publicly to document the grounds for its extraordinary actions – and immediately end those that cannot withstand the light of day.”

Bruce Ackerman, Yale Law School, New Haven, Connecticut
Yochai Benkler, Harvard Law School, Cambridge, Massachusetts

“Benkler told the Guardian: "It is incumbent on us as citizens and professors of law to say that enough is enough. We cannot allow ourselves to behave in this way if we want America to remain a society dedicated to human dignity and process of law."

He said Manning's conditions were being used "as a warning to future whistleblowers" and added: " I find it tragic that it is Obama's administration that is pursuing whistleblowers and imposing this kind of treatment."

“Ackerman pointed out that under the Pentagon's own rule book, the Uniform Code of Military Justice, Manning's jailers could be liable to prosecution for abusing him. Article 93 of the code says "any person who is guilty of cruelty toward any person subject to his orders shall be punished". Guardian online April 2011

Hang your head in shame President Obama. And hand back the Nobel Peace Prize - you are unworthy of it.