Queer+ Friends Of Chelsea Manning: An Open Letter About Wikileaks

Dear all,

As many of you will already know, in recent days Queer+ Friends of Chelsea Manning has publicly distanced itself from Wikileaks. 

Wikileaks has relied upon Chelsea’s cables for many years and has repeatedly not referenced those cables back to their publicly known source. They are not Wikileaks' cables, they are Chelsea’s cables. She is the one facing 35 in a cell and being denied therapy for releasing them. Wikileaks faces zero years. Credit is necessary so that the public can know the source of their information - which also helps Chelsea’s case and increases the number of her supporters and her chances of being released early. 

Wikileaks has not supported Chelsea’s case as much as it could have - Jaraparilla has just retweeted two cases on Twitter, attempting to show Wikileaks has supported Chelsea, one case was 622 days old and both tweets are so old that they both use Chelsea’s dead name. Please, never use Chelsea’s dead name, otherwise you will alienate a large proportion of the trans community - a community Queer+ Friends of Chelsea Manning has worked a great deal to connect with. This is a community which has very high awareness of Chelsea and which is, on the whole, very supportive of her. We are not even able to share urls containing Chelsea’s dead name because it’s rude and not acceptable. 

I know many of you personally and I have a huge amount of respect for all of you. Yes, all of you, despite what I have said. 

I have done one thing and I will continue to do one thing while running QFCM: I will absolutely, and categorically, continue to support Chelsea Manning - her best interests are paramount. 

I have no idea who, on this list, has what influence with Wikileaks but Wikileaks needs to be more supportive of Chelsea Manning and they need to do it now. I am not going to stop criticising Wikileaks publicly until this situation changes. 

Every single decision I make concerning this campaign has and always will be preceded by the question “Is this a good thing for Chelsea?”. And this includes the decision to criticise the morality of Wikileaks. 

Coming out has not been easy, I read some awful tweets, but silence is not something I do well. Not anymore, at least. 

I know many of you will not be interested in campaigning with us in future, but if you want to you would be very welcome. 

I have tacitly supported Wikileaks for too long, I am happy I have made this move despite the angry response.

Best, 

Oliver Shykles

Queer+ Friends of Chelsea Manning
Email contact: 342d495a at opayq.com

• Chelsea Manning says she is being denied gender-reassignment treatment: Defence department’s promise ‘is not being honoured’ The Guardian.