In a letter ahead of his Coronation, the WikiLeaks founder urged Britain’s new Monarch to Visit the Prison that bears his name to observe the “world class” conditions and “culinary delights
WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange wrote a letter to King Charles III on Friday, calling on the monarch to visit His Majesty’s Prison Belmarsh and observe the “world class” conditions within its walls.
Assange described the maximum security lockup as being “just a short foxhunt from the Old Royal Naval College in Greenwich,” telling the King that it must be “delightful” to have “such an esteemed establishment bear your name.”
“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,” Assange continued. “Truly, your kingdom knows no bounds.”
🔴 NEW — A Kingly Proposal: Letter from Julian Assange to King Charles III
The Belmarsh political prisoner breaks his silence for the first time in 4 years inside the maximum security prison.https://t.co/Ok7mOvGkBR
The jailed journalist described the “culinary delights” served to inmates alone in their cells, the prisoners’ recreational use of prescription drugs, the prohibition of chess for “healthcare” reasons, rodent infestations, and the suicide of one of his friends – a gay man who hung himself before his deportation to Brazil.
“I implore you, King Charles, to visit His Majesty’s Prison Belmarsh, for it is an honour befitting a king,” Assange’s letter concluded. “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.”
Assange was arrested by British authorities in 2019, after Ecuador revoked his asylum status and allowed police officers to remove him from the country’s embassy in London, where he had been sheltered since 2012.
On the day of his arrest, the US Department of Justice unsealed a multi-count indictment against Assange, slapping him with 17 charges under the Espionage Act, which can potentially carry the death penalty.
Assange is currently fighting an US extradition request, and his lawyers have appealed a prior ruling authorizing his transfer to the US, citing the incarcerated publisher’s declining health.
The charges against Assange stemmed from his communication with whistleblowers, most importantly Chelsea Manning, who in 2010 gave WikiLeaks classified materials alleging US war crimes in Iraq and Afghanistan. Although Assange did not personally leak these materials, he was still charged for his role in publishing them.
News outlets, celebrities, free speech activists, and some US and international politicians have all called on US President Joe Biden to drop the charges against Assange.
‘‘British Caribbeans’ share their views on the Coronation and the Monarchy. King Charles’s private fortune is estimated at £1.800,000,000 ($2,275,560,980). While Britons face Penury his class still rake in Trillions from Neo-Colonial ‘Debts’, Inherited ‘stolen’ Property and Offshore Scams.‘.
London’s Caribbean community reflects on the monarchy and coming coronation [Giorgia Tobiolo/Al Jazeera]
London, England – Preparations are under way for the coronation of King Charles on May 6, which will mark the inauguration of a new head of state in the United Kingdom after 70 years.
Across towns and cities, bunting decorates the streets, shops are full of memorabilia and fancy dress, and Britons have an extra public holiday on Monday to mark the occasion.
But while a sense of joy feels palpable for many, 64 percent of Britons said they did not care about the upcoming coronation, according to a recent YouGov poll, while 48 percent said they were unlikely to take part in coronation celebrations.
Al Jazeera spoke to some of London’s Caribbean community about their views on Charles and the royals, whether troubled histories can ever be forgiven, and the Caribbean push to remove the monarchy.
Here’s what they said:
‘The way that he treats Meghan and Harry is disgraceful’
Ivor John, 82, retired:
Ivor John [Giorgia Tobiolo/Al Jazeera]
Will you be watching the coronation?
Perhaps I will watch, but I’m not one for watching celebrity news. I don’t think anyone is better than me. I celebrate myself, I don’t celebrate other people.
What do you think of King Charles?
Well, I think he’s alright. But, I think the way that he treats Meghan and Harry is disgraceful. I don’t know, but I think there is some sort of bias or racial discrimination there.
What do you think of the monarchy?
My father came up here to visit me in 1984, I took him to Buckingham Palace and he was overjoyed. I was so happy to see him happy, however, I’m 82 now. I don’t feel the same as him about royalty. I don’t believe anyone is better than me, so I treat people with due respect. So, if I saw the king, I would treat him with the respect that he deserves.
What do you think about Caribbean nations removing the monarch as the head of state?
I think the Caribbean should have their own thing. Have something to celebrate their heritage. England has the heritage of the royal family.
‘Their history is based on colonialism, racism, slavery, corruption’
Cheryl Phoenix, independent legal advocate for education law:
Cheryl Phoenix [Giorgia Tobiolo/Al Jazeera]
Will you be watching the coronation?
No. I have no interest whatsoever. Watching them waste millions of pounds, yet refuse to support or do anything by way of reparations. It’s amazing how they’ve come up with that money so quickly.
What do you think of King Charles?
He, from what I understand recently, is having a look into the history around the slave trade. So with regards to King Charles, it will be interesting to see more about who he is and what he’s about. However, I’m 70-30 where he’s concerned, because of some of the racist dialogue that has come out over the years.
What do you think of the monarchy?
Their history is based on colonialism, racism, slavery, corruption. There’s not much positive I can really say, unfortunately.
What do you think about Caribbean nations removing the monarch as the head of state?
We have to cut ties. How we became a monarch state in the first place wasn’t because we volunteered ourselves. For us as a people back in the Caribbean, it’s important that we do become independent from the monarchy. I think it’s important that we also tell them to take their military forces out of our countries. You have no business being there.
The dollar is finally being dethroned UnHerd by John Michael Greer • April 22, 2023 Let’s start with the basics. Roughly 5% of the human race currently live in the United States of America. That very small fraction of humanity, until quite recently, enjoyed about a third of the world’s energy resources and manufactured products […]
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“I feel lucky and grateful that I’ve had a wonderful life … about having a few months more to enjoy life with my wife and family, and in which to continue to pursue the urgent goal of working with others to avert nuclear war in Ukraine or Taiwan (or anywhere else),”
As we continue our in-depth conversation with Daniel Ellsberg, the famed Pentagon Papers whistleblower talks about his lifelong antiwar activism and responds to the more recent leak of Pentagon documents about the war in Ukraine.
Ellsberg also reflects on the many people who inspired him and says others who look up to his example should know that the sacrifices for building a better world are worth it.
“It can work,” he says. Ellsberg, who was recently diagnosed with inoperable pancreatic cancer and given just months to live, spoke to Democracy Now! last week from his home in Berkeley, California.
Transcript.. This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form
AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org. I’m Amy Goodman, as we continue our conversation with Pentagon Papers whistleblower Dan Ellsberg, who recently announced he’s been diagnosed with inoperable pancreatic cancer. This is another excerpt from the 2009 documentary The Most Dangerous Man in America: Daniel Ellsberg and the Pentagon Papers. The clip looks at how the Nixon White House responded to the Pentagon Papers leak. You’ll hear White House counsel John Dean; Egil Krogh, who went to prison for his part in Watergate; but first, President Nixon.
PRESIDENT RICHARD NIXON: Just because some guy is going to be a martyr, we can’t be in a position of allowing the fellow to get away with this kind of wholesale thievery, or otherwise it’s going to happen all over the government. I just say that we’ve got to keep our eye on the main ball. The main ball is Ellsberg. We’ve got to get this son of a bitch.
JOHN DEAN: The leak of the Pentagon Papers changed the Nixon White House. It really is what some of us have called the beginning of the dark period. I mean, it was rough and tumble before, but it got down and dirty. So it’s really a defining event for the Nixon presidency. And this is when Egil Krogh, Bud Krogh, was selected to head up the so-called Plumbers unit.
EGIL ”BUD” KROGH JR.: I was summoned to the Oval Office by the president. John Ehrlichman and I met with him. There was some suspicion that Dr. Ellsberg had access to the more recent war plans that had been developed by the Nixon administration, and would be able to release those documents. I came from that meeting feeling very strongly that I was dealing with a national security crisis, and I was to take any means necessary to respond to it.
AMY GOODMAN: Again, that’s a former Nixon official, Egil Krogh, an excerpt from The Most Dangerous Man in America: Daniel Ellsberg and the Pentagon Papers. Dan, I’m sure this is bringing you back, though you live it every day, them breaking into your psychiatrist’s office. Talk about what that meant to you, and if that was any worse than facing a hundred years in prison.
DANIEL ELLSBERG: I think it’s been misunderstood. Again, another aspect of the Pentagon Papers, it’s been misunderstood this whole time. It’s almost always described as an attempt to smear my reputation or to stigmatize me in some way. Now, I was already an American citizen facing 12 felony counts, a possible 115 years in prison. So they weren’t working with a new surface here entirely. I had been stigmatized quite a bit by that time. But that wasn’t the aim, actually, at all of their sending it in.
As Krogh indicated — and people miss this — what they were worried about was what else I knew — namely, what else I knew and could document that went beyond the Johnson administration into the Nixon administration. The Pentagon Papers themselves ended in 1968, before Nixon came in, so they didn’t incriminate him, except for his role in the ’50s supporting the French — and proposing nuclear weapons at that time, by the way. But he wasn’t mainly involved.
And so, when they came out, in fact, he was very calm about it, and properly so. “This will show,” as Kissinger said, “that it’s really the Democrats’ war, after all.” And they realized it didn’t constitute a real threat for them.
And then they realized that they had these terrific secrets that had to be kept secret from the American public because they were so criminal and dangerous — namely, that they were threatening North Vietnam with nuclear weapons, the same way that the criminal threats that are being made against Ukraine right now by Vladimir Putin.
Nixon was making those threats through the Russian ambassador, Dobrynin, and then directly at that time. And that had to be kept secret from the American people at that time, because the American democracy would not have stood for that. So they had to shut me up.
And the problem then was to find out whether I had documents that could document, prove, what I was saying, because people were very reluctant to believe that a president could lie to that degree or could be so criminal to that degree and reckless, unless they had documents to prove it, which I didn’t have and really never did convince the public on this point.
So I failed, in a way, in my name — my major project, which was to convince the public that a lying campaign, an imperial campaign against Vietnam, that had been carried on by four previous presidents, was being carried on by a fifth. I said it, but no one believed it.
They didn’t want to believe that the president was lying to them, just as they had allowed themselves to be misled by Truman, Eisenhower, Johnson, Kennedy, Kennedy and Johnson. So, that part did not succeed; however, they had reason to feel, and to fear, that I might turn up with documents that would demonstrate — which did exist.
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