Dan Choi Banned From Manning Hearing

After an altercation with military police, Dan Choi has been banned from attending the hearing of accused Wikileaks figure Bradley Manning.

"They said I was heckling. I definitely was not heckling," Choi said in a telephone interview Monday morning. "They used six MPs to pin me down to the ground. They handcuffed me. I still can’t feel my right hand. They were so rough they ripped my rank off, the epaulets." Choi attended the last two days of Manning's preliminary hearing at Ft. Meade, wearing his full dress uniform, but he never made it into the courtroom on Monday. Choi said that when he drove to the base Monday, accompanied by Pentagon Papers leaker Daniel Ellsberg, they were held at the gate for about ten minutes. "They said, well, 'It's because you're wearing the uniform,'" Choi said. "I said, 'I'm allowed to wear the uniform. I have an honorable discharge.'…It's the first time I've had an issue with this from anybody."