The international human rights group Amnesty International has sent a letter to US Defence Secretary Robert Gates calling for the ‘inhumane’ conditions of US army private Bradley Manning to be reviewed.

Twenty-three year old Manning, who is accused of leaking information to WikiLeaks, has been held in a solitary cell for 23 hours a day and deprived of a pillow, sheets, and personal possessions since July 2010. He has been classified as a ‘maximum custody’ detainee, which requires him to be shackled at the hands and legs during all visits, despite having no history of violence.

‘We are concerned that the conditions inflicted on Bradley Manning are unnecessarily severe and amount to inhumane treatment by the US authorities,’ Susan Lee, Amnesty International’s Programme Director for the Americas, said in a media advisory.

Psychologists for Social Responsibility (PsySR) has also sent a letter to the defense secretary, asking him to ‘rectify the inhumane, harmful, and counterproductive treatment’ of the Army private.

Solitary confinement has been used in US prisons since the 19th century, but has become more prevalent with the rise of for-profit supermax prisons in recent years. Studies have found that, depending on the prison, anywhere from 0.5 percent of US prisoners to 20 […]