The U.S. military, however, has dragged its feet on her transition, causing distress and mental health issues for Manning, according to the ACLU.
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Chase Strangio, an attorney at the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), spoke with Manning on Thursday morning.
In addition to these new charges, the Army continues to deny Manning access to basic health care, including inadequate medical treatment after her suicide attempt.
Ms. Manning, a transgender Army private, is serving a 35-year sentence at Fort Leavenworth, Kan., for espionage and other offenses related to computer files given to the antisecrecy group WikiLeaks.
Army officials today informing her that she is being investigated for serious new charges related to her July 5th, 2016 attempt to take her own life.
Manning, who was born Bradley Manning, said in a statement after the sentencing that she had felt female since childhood and wanted to be known as Chelsea.
The US Army has yet to comment on the claim from the ACLU.
Manning, a former intelligence analyst in Iraq, was sentenced in 2013 to 35 years in prison after a military court conviction of providing more than 700,000 documents, videos, diplomatic cables and battlefield accounts to the anti-secrecy group WikiLeaks.
Chelsea is a trans woman being forced to serve out her sentence in an all male maximum security prison. The punitive tactics that have been employed against her include stripping her naked in her cell on a nightly basis, extended solitary confinement and denial of medical necessities like eyeglasses. A conviction may also negate any chances of parole.
In a statement, Strangio said he is “deeply troubled” by the Army’s attempts to punish Manning for attempting to kill herself. U.S. Army officials refused to connect her lawyer’s calls for almost a week following the incident, the details of which were apparently leaked to the press by an anonymous U.S. official. Having uncertainty, from day to day, regarding what medical treatment she is even going to receive is stressful in itself, and is certainly not what someone recovering from a suicide attempt should be subjected to.
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After a United Nations special rapporteur on torture completed a 14-month investigation into Manning’s treatment, the UN concluded that the U.S. government was subjecting her to, “cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment”, particularly through the use of prolonged periods of solitary confinement. The group advocates for civil liberties and free speech and collected more than 100,000 signatures previous year when the Army threatened Manning with solitary confinement for possession of LGBTQ reading material and an expired tube of toothpaste.
