US Embassy vigil for Manning and Assange

I went to the US Embassy in Grosvenor Square on Bank Holiday Saturday preparing for a possible roughhouse which would need my journalist's pass handy to keep me out of the clutches of the police. The last time I was at a demonstration against American nuclear weapons in this country I got arrested for taking a picture of a protester being beaten up.
This was a "vigil" for Bradley Manning, the young American serviceman held for over 800 days in confinement without trial, and Julian Assange, hiding out in the Ecuador embassy to escape being extradited to the US for releasing documents through Wikileaks fed to him by Manning.
But this time the scene could not have been more different. Members of Occupy London were chatting to police officers they had come to know during their night and day protests outside the Ecuador embassy. The scene was peaceful - no guns apparently pointing at us through the US Embassy windows these days, and a determinedly non-violent attitude among the protesters They were only a small group of around 50 whose commitment compensated for their small number.
Daniel Ellsberg, the American whistleblower who published the Pentagon Papers, had sent a message from his Bradley Manning Support Network which called Manning" heroic" for revealing what the government had done "at war and in secret."
Veterans for Peace UK, the newly-formed branch of the US organisation of ex-servicemen, had organised the protest, supported by the London Catholic Workers, the internet group Anonymous, and groups supporting other UK political prisoners, including Talha Ahsan imprisoned here because of an alleged website offence in the US, Shaker Aamer, still in Guantanamo, and Omar Khadr captured and imprisoned by the Americans in Afghanistan at the age of 15.

Free all political prisoners, said the posters,put against the railings outside the Embassy. A poem written by Adrian Mitchell was read out and the message called out: "Free Bradley Manning. Protect Julian Assange."
Tristan, from Occupy London, which maintains a vigil of a score of people day and night outside the Ecuador Embassy, was explaining to attentive senior police officers who had followed them to Grosvenor Square the disclosures of government malpractice in Afghanistan and Pakistan revealed by the Assange Wikileaks document. Had the police been given instructions to get a better public image of themselves? They were certainly happy to have friendly photos taken with the protesters. Perhaps times really have changed in Grosvenor Square.
There was even a long message from Women Against Rape handed out, defending Assange and calling for him not to be extradited. "Does anyone really believe that extraditing Julian Assange will strengthen women against rape? And do those supporting his extradition to Sweden care if he is then extradited to the US and tortured for telling the public what we need to know about those who govern us?"
Assange may have upset many in the media by not always doing what they want. But he has certainly gained plenty of other friends.

ends