Manning is allowed visits only on Saturday and Sunday. The rest of the week he is kept in his cell 23 hours a day, fed a daily diet of antidepressant pills, forbidden to exercise in his cell, and forcibly woken if he attempts to sleep in the daytime. He is continually subject to what is called "maximum custody", and also to a so-called "prevention of injury" order, which among other things, deprives him of his clothes at night and also of normal sheets and bedding in favour of a blanket he describes as being like the lead apron used when operating x-ray machines. He is allowed no personal possessions.

A friend of Manning in the Guardian. How is this going to do anything but slowly destroy his mind? Presumably they know that. The only aim can be to 'send a signal': this is what happens if you cross us. I'm reminded of Jon Ronson's 'the men who stare at goats': I came away from that thinking the U.S. is just a serial abuser who's become hugely adept at battering people without leaving any bruises. Obama's silence and the sacking (sorry, resignation) of Philip Crowley are not comforting.

Manning has until October until he's under civilian law.