During Chelsea Manning’s recent five-day hunger strike, the jailed transgender US soldier gained the public support of former R.E.M. singer Michael Stipe.

Stipe, sporting a long, gray beard, posted a video on the Chelsea Manning Support Network YouTube page Monday (12 September). In it he says he supports ‘human rights for all people.’

‘As an American patriot, it is my duty to stand with Chelsea Manning,’ says the out performer.

‘After years of mistreatment in prison, she tragically attempted to take her own life. Instead of giving her the treatment that she needs, the government is now threatening her with indefinite solitary confinement. This is unjustifiable, it is unfair, and it needs to be stopped.’

The US army has since agreed to provide Manning with gender transition surgery in April. She is serving a 35-year sentence for passing data to WikiLeaks and attempted suicide in July over lack of treatment for her gender dysphoria.

Stipe’s video is among those that appears on an online petition which states: ‘The government is still threatening her with solitary confinement for charges related to her attempt to take her own life. It was the government’s refusal to grant Chelsea access to needed health care that led to her suicide attempt in the first place.’

Since first taken into custody in 2010, Manning was forced to serve out her sentence in an all-male prison and subjected to long stretches of solitary confinement at the Fort Leavenworth military facility in Kansas.