“I was stripped of all clothing with the exception of my underwear. My prescription eyeglasses were taken away from me and I was forced to sit in essential blindness.”

Those words were part of an 11-page letter written by Chelsea Manning and passed to the Guardian in March 2011 in which she outlined the harsh treatment to which she was being subjected in prolonged solitary confinement in the military brig at Quantico base in Virginia. She was then awaiting trial as the suspected source of the biggest leak of state secrets in US history, and going under the male name given to her at birth before her transition to living as a woman. The details of her detention were later denounced by the UN as a form of torture.