Female Activists Strip Down in Front of Feinstein's S.F. Office, Protest WikiLeaks Case

By Erin Sherbert Tue., Mar. 22 2011 at 1:19 PM

When a phone call to your senator doesn't get attention

If you were passing through downtown San Francisco early this morning your eyes might have wandered over to a group of women staging a protest San Francisco-style -- without their clothes on.

What you saw was a handful of women from San Francisco's CODEPINK chapter who peeled off their apparel early this morning in front of Sen. Dianne Feinstein's downtown office to show -- literally -- their disdain and disgust over the mistreatment of accused WikiLeaks whistleblower Bradley Manning, the America army private who was arrested last May on suspicion of releasing classified information.

The group shivered and chanted, bare and cold at 8 a.m., as they held signs reading: "Manning: Stripped of his rights, and "WikiLeaks exposed the naked truth about war."

Naturally, people stopped to chat with the unclad women and other just stopped to stare.

And then there were the voyeurs who snapped photos of the mostly topless women.

"Hopefully, it wasn't for [tits and ass]," said Rae Abileah, spokeswoman for CODEPINK.

But let's be honest: It probably it was.

The protesters used this as an opportunity to push their message to Feinstein; they had been trying to reach her for weeks, demanding she speak out on the Manning case.

Manning has been in solitary confinement for more than 10 months, with no trial date set. He has suffered under harsh conditions, has recenlty been forced to strip and sleep naked, Abileah said.

Feinstein hadn't met with the group until yesterday, when a spokesman from her office told CODEPINK that the senator would not be making any statements on the case. The group decided to escalate the cause, and showed up at the senator's downtown office this morning and disrobed.

"Our pure naked bodies are not obscene," Abileah said after the protest was over. "What's obscene is this war."

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Tags:

Bradley Manning, CODEPINK, naked women, Sen. Dianne Feinstein, WikiLeaks

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Tony M

Silly attention whores...

oranckay

Couldn't you get a better picture?

Alice de Tocqueville

Many Americans don't realize that Manning came across evidence of war crimes in the course of his job in Iraq. He attempted to do precisely what his oath required, and report those crimes thru the chain of command. He was told to shut up and harassed, but still was tasked with handling secret cables, where he came across further evidence of probable war crimes and other scandalous actions.

That this American soldier is being treated inhumanely because he did his duty, and answered to the call of conscience tells us that our government doesn't even pay lip service to the law. American professional psychiatrists have written to the President about the effects of months of solitary confinement, and Army psychs have said there's no justification for the way he's being treated - but clearly Obama intends to use Manning as a warning against anyone else acting on their conscience even if they are obeying the law. God help this country .

Tony M

[Many Americans don't realize that Manning came across evidence of war crimes in the course of his job in Iraq] Yeah, right. You believe everything the kook faction tells you, huh?