The whistleblower has been jailed for refusing to answer questions before a grand jury.

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is calling for Chelsea Manning to be released from the Virginia jail where she is being held for refusing to answer questions before a grand jury. The whistleblower was jailed last month, and according to supporters is being held in what amounts to solitary confinement.

Ocasio-Cortez said Manning was being “tortured for whistleblowing,” that she should be released on bail, and that the United States should ban the practice of extended solitary confinement.

Related: Chelsea Manning has been trapped in solitary confinement for refusing to answer questions before a Grand Jury. Solitary confinement is torture. Chelsea is being tortured for whistleblowing, she should be released on bail, and we should ban extended solitary in the US. https://t.co/95ef4xYt3k — Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC) April 2, 2019

“Chelsea can’t be out of her cell while any other prisoners are out, so she cannot talk to other people, or visit the law library, and has no access to books or reading material,” Chelsea Resists, a committee supporting Manning, claimed in a statement. “She has not been outside for 16 days. She is permitted to make phone calls and move about outside her cell between 1 and 3 a.m.”

Dana Lawhorne, the sheriff of Alexandria, Virginia, where she is being held, has disputed claims Manning is in solitary.

“Our facility does not have ’solitary confinement’ and inmates housed in administrative segregation for safety and security reasons still have access to social visits, books, recreation, and break time outside their cells,” Lawhorne told CNN. He also struck back against claims the federal government has “suggested to us how to treat any inmate” and said it was “unfair to imply that there is a ’conspiracy’ of any kind.”

Jahi Chikwendiu/The Washington Post via Getty Images

Manning can be detained for as long as the grand jury is seated. Her team continues to fight for her immediate release.

Manning has said she objects to the grand jury process, calling it “terrible, to say the least,” and arguing she already revealed what she knows about WikiLeaks—the anti-secrecy group she leaked classified information to—during her 2013 court-martial. She was sentenced to 35 years, but her sentence was commuted by former President Obama in 2017.

Federal prosecutors believe she may have given “false or mistaken” testimony during that 2013 testimony, her attorney disclosed in an unsealed court filing. Her attorneys claim that belief stems from information obtained through unlawful tactics.

“The concern here is that the subpoena as a whole is the product of unlawful—and possibly misunderstood—electronic surveillance,” attorney Moira Meltzer-Cohen wrote in a motion to block the subpoena.

“Since her release, Ms. Manning has experienced all manner of intrusive surveillance, including surveillance vans parked outside her apartment, federal agents following her, and strangers attempting to goad her into an absurdly contrived conversation about selling dual-use technologies to foreign actors.”

Solitary confinement is known to be harmful, with a study conducted by psychiatrist and former Harvard Medical School faculty member Stuart Grassian finding that roughly a third of solitary inmates were “actively psychotic and/or acutely suicidal.” Manning twice attempted suicide in 2016 while in federal custody, and posted a tweet appearing to threaten suicide in 2018.