Supporters of accused WikiLeaks leaker Bradley Manning held demonstrations and events in 19 cities last Friday and over the weekend to draw attention to what they say is the unfair prosecution of a conscientious whistle-blower.

Manning, 23, is being held in solitary confinement in the Marine Corps brig at Quantico, Virginia. He was arrested last May and has been charged with leaking classified information, including video of a deadly 2007 Army helicopter attack in Iraq that claimed the lives of a number of civilians. WikiLeaks had released that video under the title “Collateral Murder” in April 2010.

Manning is also suspected, but not charged, in the leak of a detailed and mostly-classified log of 92,000 events in the Afghan war, which WikiLeaks published in part last July. In his chats with the former hacker who turned him in, Manning described leaking a database of 260,000 State Department diplomatic cables, and a classified Army event log from the war in Iraq covering 500,000 events from 2004 through 2009. WikiLeaks has denied receiving the diplomatic cables, but is reportedly preparing the Iraq event log for publication within weeks.

Threat Level dispatched Wired.com video producer Annaliza Savage to attend the San Francisco protest, which unfolded Saturday at the War Memorial Building, and resembled nothing so much as a 1960s peace rally. The event drew a surprisingly older crowd of about 100 demonstrators.