Former U.S. Army intelligence analyst Chelsea Manning © AFP / Getty Images / Win McNamee

Chelsea Manning’s decision to sit in jail rather than cooperate with the US government’s prosecution of WikiLeaks is a testament to her character and unwavering principles, NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden has said.

Commenting on Manning’s newly-won freedom, Snowden noted that the former Army analyst-turned-whistleblower had been “cast into a dungeon” by the United States for refusing to work with the government to criminalize the publication of classified materials.

They offered to let her out in exchange for collaboration, but she chose her principles instead.

For Snowden, Manning’s unwillingness to exchange her freedom for her beliefs was the ultimate display of “moral strength.”

The government cast Manning into a dungeon for resisting a scheme to make publishers of news subject to the Espionage Act. They offered to let her out in exchange for collaboration, but she chose her principles instead. That is moral strength.@xychelsea https://t.co/zmlG0ksTnV — Edward Snowden (@Snowden) March 13, 2020

Manning was released on Thursday after spending nearly a year in detention for refusing to cooperate with a federal grand jury probe into WikiLeaks. Her release order came shortly after her legal team disclosed that she had been hospitalized after attempting to take her own life.Although no longer locked away in a Virginia detention facility, Manning still faces more than $250,000 in fines for refusing to cooperate with the inquiry.

The ex-army analyst became a household name after leaking hundreds of thousands of documents and files related to the US wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. She was found guilty in 2013 of espionage, and spent four years in prison before her sentence was commuted in 2017.

The decision to release Manning coincides with another legal battle: WikiLeaks co-founder Julian Assange is currently fighting extradition to the United States. The journalist could spend the rest of his life in a US prison if the UK court rules against him.

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