Though convicted of nothing, and merely in “administrative detention” entitled to the presumption of innocence, for five years Julian Assange’s voice has been effectively silenced.
The dreadful place of harsh incarceration that is Belmarsh prison, where terrorists are kept, has not allowed his voice to be heard by the world. Journalists are not permitted to visit him – even NGOs have been prevented from visiting on the false basis they are journalists, and may communicate his thoughts to the outside world.
I don’t know how, but somehow Julian has managed to send out some thoughts in the pretext of an appeal to King Charles over prison conditions. The text is clearly heavily sarcastic, and the subject limited. But at least it serves to remind the world of Julian’s terrible fate.
I know the dreadful, pointless inhumanity of which he speaks, the stupid rules, the isolation, the utter waste of money and human potential with no useful outcome. Two people died in Saughton jail the very week I left. Close your eyes and you can perhaps hear the beautiful tenor voice of Julian’s friend who committed suicide.
To His Majesty King Charles III,
On the coronation of my liege, I thought it only fitting to extend a heartfelt invitation to you to commemorate this momentous occasion by visiting your very own kingdom within a kingdom: His Majesty’s Prison Belmarsh.
You will no doubt recall the wise words of a renowned playwright: “The quality of mercy is not strained. It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven upon the place beneath.”
Ah, but what would that bard know of mercy faced with the reckoning at the dawn of your historic reign? After all, one can truly know the measure of a society by how it treats its prisoners, and your kingdom has surely excelled in that regard.
Your Majesty’s Prison Belmarsh is located at the prestigious address of One Western Way, London, just a short foxhunt from the Old Royal Naval College in Greenwich. How delightful it must be to have such an esteemed establishment bear your name.
It is here that 687 of your loyal subjects are held, supporting the United Kingdom’s record as the nation with the largest prison population in Western Europe. As your noble government has recently declared, your kingdom is currently undergoing “the biggest expansion of prison places in over a century”, with its ambitious projections showing an increase of the prison population from 82,000 to 106,000 within the next four years. Quite the legacy, indeed.
As a political prisoner, held at Your Majesty’s pleasure on behalf of an embarrassed foreign sovereign, I am honoured to reside within the walls of this world-class institution. Truly, your kingdom knows no bounds.
During your visit, you will have the opportunity to feast upon the culinary delights prepared for your loyal subjects on a generous budget of two pounds per day. Savour the blended tuna heads and the ubiquitous reconstituted forms that are purportedly made from chicken. And worry not, for unlike lesser institutions such as Alcatraz or San Quentin, there is no communal dining in a mess hall. At Belmarsh, prisoners dine alone in their cells, ensuring the utmost intimacy with their meal.
Beyond the gustatory pleasures, I can assure you that Belmarsh provides ample educational opportunities for your subjects. As Proverbs 22:6 has it: “Train up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it.” Observe the shuffling queues at the medicine hatch, where inmates gather their prescriptions, not for daily use, but for the horizon-expanding experience of a “big day out”—all at once.
You will also have the opportunity to pay your respects to my late friend Manoel Santos, a gay man facing deportation to Bolsonaro’s Brazil, who took his own life just eight yards from my cell using a crude rope fashioned from his bedsheets. His exquisite tenor voice now silenced forever.
Venture further into the depths of Belmarsh and you will find the most isolated place within its walls: Healthcare, or “Hellcare” as its inhabitants lovingly call it. Here, you will marvel at sensible rules designed for everyone’s safety, such as the prohibition of chess, whilst permitting the far less dangerous game of checkers.
Deep within Hellcare lies the most gloriously uplifting place in all of Belmarsh, nay, the whole of the United Kingdom: the sublimely named Belmarsh End of Life Suite. Listen closely, and you may hear the prisoners’ cries of “Brother, I’m going to die in here”, a testament to the quality of both life and death within your prison.
But fear not, for there is beauty to be found within these walls. Feast your eyes upon the picturesque crows nesting in the razor wire and the hundreds of hungry rats that call Belmarsh home. And if you come in the spring, you may even catch a glimpse of the ducklings laid by wayward mallards within the prison grounds. But don’t delay, for the ravenous rats ensure their lives are fleeting.
I implore you, King Charles, to visit His Majesty’s Prison Belmarsh, for it is an honour befitting a king. As you embark upon your reign, may you always remember the words of the King James Bible: “Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy” (Matthew 5:7). And may mercy be the guiding light of your kingdom, both within and without the walls of Belmarsh.
Your most devoted subject,
Julian Assange
A9379AY
I think my own statement when I was released from jail is worth another look here in the similar things I said about prison conditions. I also stated:
“I shall never really feel free until my friend and colleague Julian Assange is also free”.
That remains absolutely the case.
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What a letter! I tried to read it aloud to my husband but kept breaking into tears. There are no words to describe my feelings towards those who sent and keep him there. What a disgrace for the so-called enlightened UK.
Assange called upon EU human rights court last year to help him, but they simply ignored him.
“Julian Assange appeals to European court over U.S. extradition”
https://www.reuters.com/world/julian-assange-appeals-european-court-over-us-extradition-2022-12-02/
They are quick when it comes to other confined people outside of europe though..
“ECHR tells Russia to free Alexei Navalny on safety grounds”
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/feb/17/echr-tells-russia-to-free-alexei-navalny-on-safety-grounds
Is there no law, rules in the UK for how long this circus could go on for Assange? How can this be legal?
This woman should be ashamed of herself:
“Woman who accused Julian Assange of sexual assault claims he ‘humiliated and abused’ her”
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9236079/Woman-accused-Julian-Assange-sexual-assault-claims-humiliated-abused-new-book.html
Interesting how she stayed with Assange for days AFTER the alleged “rape”:
https://twitter.com/angirtaghchig/status/1117936861723471872/photo/1
The only positive from this letter is that it testifies to Julian’s mind still working well. I would probably be completely insane after such a terrible ordeal, with the hideous additional punishment of having no idea about the future.
This has all the horrors of the dystopian “indefinite sentences” handed down, but with the additional twist that it could end up even worse – with a transfer to the merciless and vengeful American prison system.
Hats off for the ingenuity of writing to Charles. Apart from that I can only repeat myself – the affair started as a tawdry, dishonest disgrace and became downright cruel and abhorrent.
Charles may act only on the advice of his ministers. Could he persuade them to give him advice marked by decency? It’s a long shot.
dearieme, do you really believe that tosh about constraints on Charles? I mean you no offence but…
Do you know that every Parliamentarian swears a personal oath to Charles and his family?
Do you know that every minister swears a further personal oath to Charles when s/he joins the privy council?
Do you know that Charles answers only to God for his sovereign powers?
Do you know that in this case God is represented by one of the moneychangers thrown out of the Temple by Jesus?
When you reach secondary school you’ll be encouraged to put this childish understanding of constitutional monarchy behind you.
dearie, please do not project onto me.
I present facts: you present name calling.
I say “Show me the constitution. Where is it? Where is it written down? If it is not written down, why is that? If the constitution is not written down how can it be enforced, or debated, or argued, or delimited?
Britain has this wonderful system. It has a constitutional monarchy, but with no constitution.
From where do you think the “rules based order”, which has no rules, draws inspiration?
It is inspired by the British “constitutional monarchy”.
Good luck with your Archbishop Money Changer.
Maybe, just maybe, with Albanese and Lula mentioning Julian the tide is beginning to turn. We can only hope.
Stevie Boy, I wish I could feel your (faint) optimism. But Albanese has been PM for almost a year and Julian’s still being kept in conditions which amount to torture. My emails to my (Labor) MP about Julian get zero response. Proof yet again that Australian PMs can’t bend over far enough when it comes to the US.
Thank you
Well said, Julian Assange.
Just can’t stop him leaking the truth, eh?
“CONVICTED OF NOTHING” – is the most important and shocking bit, after 5 YEARS of high-security incarceration and isolation.
If the man’s guilty of something, then get on and prove it and pass sentence. Otherwise it’s an insult to anything that could be called justice.
After that, you get to the question of whether the conditions described could be justified for any sentence.
I consider myself fairly right-wing in many ways, yet the notions of justice and personal freedom should be a core belief.
They used to lambast Stalin for his show trials. But guess what? At least those poor innocents had a trial. Now the empire just uses “the show of no trials at all”, whether it’s Assange or those few benighted souls still rotting away in Guantanamo Bay, deemed guilty by governments too cowardly to accuse them of that “guilt” in a court of law, even one rigged and stacked in their favor.
It says so much about the media that almost no ‘journalist’ speaks up for Julian Assange. It reveals how controlled it is, and it is a shocking level of control, nearly all of them at this point.
False allegations of sexual misconduct to smear a persons reputation and to attempt to get them jailed based on lies.
Julian Assange
Craig Murray
Alex Salmond
Anyone see the pattern? Of course with Corbyn they smeared him with false charges of anti Semitism but they all carry the same foul signature odour.
The magistrate in the Assange court case was unbelievable. I knew it was bad but it was so bad it still continues to shock me. Just railroading the guy in open court. And no one is reporting it. And then you get to Lady Dorrian, wow… again crickets (and not just from the media). The UK is quite a frightening place these days.
It’s off the charts. The archbishop of Canterbury was one of those who smeared Corbyn as an antisemite. On Saturday he was pictured in uproarious laughter with Prince Andrew, somebody he has demanded the public forgive. He also said Israel is a ‘beacon of tolerance’ when informed numerous human rights organisations had designated it an apartheid state. This is who the UK considers its most respectable person.
What has been done to Julian Assange is so terribly British. So very characteristic of that breed.
It reminds me of the Birmingham Six.
Most readers here will know much of the story. How two bombs exploded in two Birmingham pubs, killing twenty-one and maiming hundreds.
How the British police went around Birmingham and grabbed the first six Irishmen they could find, took them down into the station cellar, and beat the living daylights out of them until they signed a fake confession.
How years later, when it was obvious to all that these people were innocent of any crime, the most senior judge in England argued that the men should be stopped from challenging legal decisions. He listed several reasons for not allowing their appeal:
How terribly British.
But that is not my point.
When the six were finally released, they won compensation for the terrible wrongs that were committed against them. And this is my point about the British and what they are doing to Julian Assange. The British never apologise. They always have the final word. They counted how many days each man had spent in prison and calculated how many meals and how many nights each had enjoyed at Her Majesty’s pleasure, made a charge for every meal and every night, and deducted the total from each man’s compensation.
Because they can.
Totally inhuman. Totally evil. And so very very British.
I wish BRICS nations would actually do something more than mere condemnations:
‘Crazy thing’ – Lula criticizes imprisonment of Assange
https://swentr.site/news/575952-brazilian-president-uk-assange-imprisonment/
Sooner or later we will all become “Assange” if we criticise or expose western foreign policies, warcrimes etc
Why is there no leftist pushback against measures like this for example?:
US launches new ‘ministry of truth’
The Office of the Director of National Intelligence has set up a body to counter foreign ‘disinformation’
https://swentr.site/news/575936-us-foreign-disinformation-intelligence-redundant/
It is obvious that these measures will soon target regular people like us here and there will be no protest.
Jack.
“these measures will soon target regular people … ”
It’s already happened/happening. Just consider going against the state approved narrative for anything, but in particular consider: Brexit, Covid, Ukraine, Israel, BLM, Climate.
You may not end up in Belmarsh but your life and livelihood could be destroyed (eg. Graham Phillips) and no-one would give a flying f***.
In the west free speech and democracy is an illusion fed to the gullible masses.
Yes exactly sanctions against regular people will become more common and I believe also that outings of anti-war/peace activists/contrarian/anti-establishment/people like us here, by the media will become also more used to shame and silence people.
German journalist faces three years prison over reporting from eastern Ukraine
https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/w/german-journalist-faces-three-years-prison-over-reporting-donbass-region
Then the german authorities went after her mom so now she lives in Russia with her daughter!
https://www.facebook.com/100071407777680/videos/1441617679669253/
Not a word about this in any MSM, imagine if this woman was russian an reported warcrimes of Russia and how Russia then went after her and her mom like this, the west would be up in arms! But when they do the same onto Phillips or this german mom and daughter, it is suddenly OK!?
Another example:
Peace activist sentenced for criticizing German war policy in Ukraine
https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2023/02/01/qqln-f01.html
And of course not to forget: Ukraine/Nato/Neocon critic, blogger Gonzalo Lira arrested by Ukraine the other day.
Did the western journalists call for his release? Nope, this is how Yahoo framed it:
Misogynist dating coach Gonzalo Lira, aka Coach Red Pill, arrested in Ukraine for Russian propaganda
https://news.yahoo.com/misogynist-dating-coach-gonzalo-lira-222200279.html
On the subject of the state approved narrative, just listening to the BBC today they are ramping up the chatter re Artificial Intelligence – the message being that it needs controlling. Of course it does – the power that would be available to every Tom Dick and Harry to request analysis of any political situation using all the resources of the internet and an infallible memory – the official bullshit would instantly collapse.
IMO, there is something going on with this AI BS other than what we are being told. Yes, maybe the establishment and the gullible fear it, but that’s probably due to an excess of Hollywood films and technical ignorance. AI is only as good as it’s training data and the underlying software engine, so it’s definitely a case of GIGO. Social media related AI will only increase the IQ of the average social media user into double figures – surely a good thing !
AI is enabling some excellent work in the medical field, cancer detection, etc. And in many other sectors it is helping scientific research. Fear drummed up by the MSM and those with political agendas should not lead to throwing baby out with the bathwater.
Stevie Boy
I’m not sure you’ve understood the gist of my post – maybe I was too cryptic. I was commenting on the potential impingement of AI on the ‘approved narrative’ – your phrase.
My postulation is that, in contrast to the much parroted claim of protection of the public from ‘disinformation’, the truth is (as few on this site bar the usual suspects will find surprising) nearer the opposite. Namely that the opinion formers wish to guard against disintegration of their narrative by AI systems that could be readily available to Joe Public. I suspect this is the major concern of the PTB and the reason for all the natter.
IMcK. Apologies.
Yes, I understood your comment. My, clumsy, comment was not intended as a response as such, more in the nature of more of the same, albeit maybe i was not clear enough.
Hold your thought for a sec on AI:
US developed AI tool to battle ‘Russian disinformation’ – Blinken
The Ukraine Content Aggregator is used to catch ‘fake news’ and share data on it with foreign partners, the secretary of state claims
https://swentr.site/news/576034-blinken-ai-disinformation-ukraine/
Of course real people will be covered in such aggregation being framed as “bots”.
I suspect that rather than meeting any reasonable definition of Artificial Intelligence (whatever that might be) the ‘Aggregator’ works more on a basis such as – mentioned Ukraine and was not positive – mentioned Russia and was not sufficiently negative
They should impose SANCTIONS.
Stop businesses and bankers and soon the message will be heard.
Don’t prompt, DunGroanin 🙂
Sanctions imposed on Russia gave such a boost to the economy that yesterday it was reported that Russia had returned to the top 10 economies in the world.
I prefer that Western countries be left to stewing in their own “wise” system. Perhaps in the end this will lead to such domestic problems that they will no longer have time to run around the world with weapons and fuel military conflicts with money. Like, no fuel for planes carrying Pelossi to Taiwan.
By the way, Syria is back in the Arab League! Surprisingly good news, isn’t it? Asad will establish relations with neighbors in the region, and I find it nice news!
Of all the illegitimacies of his incarceration, what I find hardest to stomach is the savage, sadistic, vindictive cruelty which the British authorities have visited upon him. Even if you accepted his detention (which I don’t) there is absolutely no reason to hold him in a high security prison, as if he is on the verge of bursting out of a normal cell and killing a load of people. It is preposterous, although it tells you a lot about the danger that the authorities see in free speech. Britain, and the US, have no right to call themselves liberal democracies, since that status would ensure no imprisonment without trial, and the guarantee of free speech.
Clearly they want to utterly break him, and whilst doing so, prevent any communication from him, or even discussion about him. Even a few decades ago, the UK had a more robust view of itself and would not automatically agree to an illegal extradition request. The supine, client status of the UK to the US now is pathetic, even as the US holds us in contempt and derision for the way we are rapidly declining. But our truly feeble-minded politicans, principle-free, only see it as more urgent that we kowtow to our disinterested superiors. We could have actually done them a favour in throwing it out of court, thus neutering what most of them know is a disastrous and vindictive decision made under a previous administration. The fact that Chelsea Manning is now free might be a small clue as to the affront to justice and freedom of the press in the US that this case represents.
Ugly, unnecessary, nothing to be gained by it, yet they are hellbent on hoping they can crush this man before he even makes it out of Belmarsh. I have no doubt that should he weaken and die, they would consider it ‘job done’. That is a measure of their barbarism.
One contribution by Samuel Taylor Coleridge to the 1798 “Lyrical Ballads” which does not receive very much attention is “The Dungeon.” This dramatic monologue, that Coleridge extracted from Act V of his 1797 drama “Osorio”, was probably inspired by the poet’s empathy with the sufferings experienced by leading members of the London Corresponding Society, such as Thomas Hardy and Thomas Holcroft, who were unjustly incarcerated by the Pitt government in 1795 / 96 on trumped up charges of sedition.
The Dungeon
And this place our forefathers made for man!
This is the process of our love and wisdom,
To each poor brother who offends against us—
Most innocent, perhaps—and what if guilty?
Is this the only cure? Merciful God!
Each pore and natural outlet shrivell’d up
By Ignorance and parching Poverty,
His energies roll back upon his heart,
And stagnate and corrupt; till chang’d to poison,
They break out on him, like a loathsome plague-spot;
Then we call in our pamper’d mountebanks—
And this is their best cure! uncomforted
And friendless solitude, groaning and tears,
And savage faces, at the clanking hour,
Seen through the steams and vapour of his dungeon,
By the lamp’s dismal twilight! So he lies
Circled with evil, till his very soul
Unmoulds its essence, hopelessly deform’d
By sights of ever more deformity!
*****
Free Julian Assange!
Thanks to Ian, above, and Alan Heffez and especially Coleridge for their very moving words.
https://twitter.com/AdamVasco/status/1655278023107641351
Lula : It is a shame that Assange, a journalist who denounced frauds from one state against another, is in prison and we do nothing to free him.”
Dear Julian Assange,
I am writing to you in response to your letter addressed to the newly crowned King Charles III. I read it on a blog site where the principle, who is known to you, has faced oppression of a kind similar to yours – arbitrary spite masquerading as judicial dispensation. A trait I share with my most merciful Sovereign, is my insistence on the importance of formality – all things by their proper name. With this in mind I shall forthwith call you “Mr Assange”. This usage implies no distance. We are intimates, though you know it not. Before I could call you ” Julian” I would have to meet you in the flesh and specifically receive your permission to have the honour of addressing you by your first name – call me old fashioned, call me stubborn but this is both the way I am made and the way I was trained as a child in the way I should go. This way has led me to you.
Mr Assange, when I say “we are intimates”, I mean only that I dream about you and the conditions of your remorseless detention. In the dream, the locus of my attention is manifested in your cell. Do not be alarmed – my vision comes in monochrome and I have never yet seen your face, there are no privacy issues we must navigate. The only information I receive from the dream concerns the mortal threats you face, how incarceration may kill without violence – the crushing of the human spirit, all the more powerful if the prisoner has a justified true belief that justice has not been served. It gladdens me to read your words and feel the zest of life contained within. I had no idea that King Charles III prison Belmarsh contained such varied and unusual fauna. You must be very suprised that the BBC, long renowned for it’s exhaustive output concerning the living world has not heard about this incredible profusion of life and rushed team of cameras to your location – to film in incredible colour and detail the trials of life and death at King Charles III prison Belmarsh – after all they think nothing of going to the very ends of the earth to bring us the intimate doings of creatures both unknown and remarkable.
The phrase “Brother, I’m going to die in here” is one I shall not forget. Just as I shall not forget “Collateral Murder”. I have not been the same since my one viewing – for I have seen how the trick is done; how the trick of empire is actually done. Whether “gladius” or autocannon rip the flesh matters not. Just that the flesh is ripped and torn – that is the trick of empire – dominion – domination. This is the reason for your treatment.
“Theft, slaughter, rapine they misname empire, they make a desert and call it peace.”
Calgacus as quoted by Tacitus in the Agricola.
Mr Assange if you will allow me the indulgence, these last paragraphs I would address to our most merciful Sovereign in appeal for clemency and succour.
Sire, I am not a republican; I am an anti-monarchist. I have entered into this vexatious condition through experience not through ideology. Indeed I hold no ideology other than things must be seen to be fair and justice must be seen to be done. My turning away from the House of Windsor began when Mrs Thatcher assumed your mother’s dispensation, after the people (or at least 43.9% of those who voted) had spoken. This event began the blight that has led us to this place – where I, a subject of your Majesty, would, if asked, refuse to give my assent to your assumption of rule.
When I was young you were a kind of brother to me. As I grew, I watched you grow through the TV lens. I had only positive thoughts about you. Then the darkness came visible, slowly; revealed to these, then those, after some time a great multitude were aware that there was something “… rotten in the state of Denmark”. Your friendship with Sir James Savile and your brother’s disgrace are where we stand now. If one has consorted with monsters, a purification ritual is required. Intervention in an aim to correct injustice could be this ritual.
None of these issues are as important as the plight of your people and the fragility of your reign. Give us your people, a sign. If we cannot have political leadership, give us social leadership. Stake out your position, let us know your will, of what you think right and wrong. If you are a decent person, show us this decency, hold to your beliefs and as you were born to do; lead us. Lead us to a better place than the United Kingdom currently is. Your country is sick, your people divided; despair and despite walk the very streets of this, your august realm. If you come out and say, just say “What about Julian Assange?”, for me and maybe many others this could be the start of the rejuvenation of your estate, the mysterious symbolic process by which through rebirth makes one thing into another. Will history know “Charles the bad” or “Charles the good”? These matters lie within your purview. I ask not for a radical firebrand; merely that you recognise injustice and make your feelings known. We, your people, will hear you Sire. I leave you with two phrases, one of which I have never thought I would ever say
FREE JULIAN ASSANGE GOD SAVE THE KING
So sorry to hear about David Miranda.
All best wishes to Glenn.
This is not O/T as there’s a great interview with Julian on Youtube.
And in a failed state would you expect anything else other than unconditional support for truth-tellers/naysayers/whistleblowers from an AI ChatGPT
Basically that one political prisoner Julian Assange puts the whole UK’s morality, justice and standing to world shame. One man.
I watched the documentary on Julian Assange, ITV 21/5/23. I did not learn more about the case though I did not realise the great effort his father was making for him. What came over most is that UN Article 15 – “Freedom from torture or cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment” is being flouted with glee. I have lost faith in our legal system, it is just another stick being used for abuse of power. It has become the Injustice System.