Chelsea Manning, formerly known as Bradley Manning, broke her silence from prison, issuing a public statement in which she denied being "a pacifist."
Manning's statement, published Wednesday, addresses the 2013 Sean MacBride Peace Award, which the International Peace Bureau awarded the WikiLeaks source last month. The award was accepted on her behalf by prominent pacifist and retired U.S. army colonel Ann Wright.
See also: Chelsea Manning Asks for Presidential Pardon
But in her statement, which was shared with The Guardian, Manning claims she did not know about the award until she started receiving letters mentioning it, and disagrees with the way Wright portrayed her when accepting the award.
"From my perspective at least, it's not terribly clear to me that my actions were explicitly done for 'peace.' I don't consider myself a 'pacifist,' 'antiwar,' or (especially) a 'conscientious objector,'" Manning wrote in the letter, below, which refers to her decision to leak thousands of secret documents to WikiLeaks. "Now — I accept that there may be 'peaceful' or 'anti-war' implications to my actions — but this is purely based on your subjective interpretation of the primary source documents released in 2010-11."
Manning, who was awarded the prize for her "outstanding work for peace” in "revealing information about U.S. war crimes," prefers a different term to describe what she did.
"I'm a 'transparency advocate.' I feel that the public cannot decide what actions and policies are or are not justified if they don't even know the most rudimentary details about them and their effects," she said.
Manning was sentenced to 35 years in prison in August, after a military judge found her guilty of espionage and other charges. After the sentencing, Manning announced she wanted to be referred to as Chelsea, and that she would undergo sexual reassignment therapy to become a woman.
In her statement, Manning refers to the treatment, thanking "everyone who has avoided misgendering me and switched to using my new name and feminine pronouns."
You can read Manning's full statement, below:
Chelsea Manning statement from prison

Image: Mark Wilson/Getty Images