The imprisoned journalist invites the new U.K. monarch, on the occasion of his coronation, to visit “his own kingdom within a kingdom: His Majesty’s Prison Belmarsh.”
His Majesty King Charles III hosts a reception at Buckingham Palace for heads of state and overseas visitors, Sept. 18, 2022. (Foreign Commonwealth and Development Office, Flickr, CC BY-NC 2.0)
By Julian Assange
Declassified UK
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.
“One can truly know the measure of a society by how it treats its prisoners”
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.
HM Prison Belmarsh. (Anders Sandberg/Flickr, CC BY-NC 2.0)
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.
“My late friend Manoel Santos…took his own life just eight yards from my cell”
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
First published by Declassified UK.
Began beautifully, but his litany of the horrors of life at Belmarsh would have impacted greater without the sarcastic tone.
The horrors of Belmarsh have been well documented. The sarcastic tone tells me that Julian has not been and will never be defeated by these evil forces.
FREE JULIAN ASSANGE
A bit ‘confused’
While it’s delightful to once again read anything ‘published’ by Julian Assange …When/what/where was he once again ‘permitted’ to publish???
Thought that he’d been (outrageously) denied this since losing his Internet ‘privileges’ at the Ecuadorian Embassy years ago??
Although Julian has every right to be sarcastic and dismissive of the country (and the U S as well)that boldly and falsely imprisons him, it seems like the likes of British elites will only dig in deeper. I had a very strong urge to invite Clarence Thomas to join me in a lovely trip to a Walmart parking lot, but then I thought he already has complete disdain for the average citizen despite his silly words. What’s an ordinary citizen to do!?
Julian still has his mojo, I’m glad to see. Unfortunately King Charles looks like he is about as courageous as Merrick Garland (who could also drop the charges).
Bravo Julian Assange. This is the most accurate tellling of the state of the Nation…..any Nation who aspires toward Colonial
Imperialism. That ordinary folk as we are all can set themselves as a rarer & higher breed is such a faiytale it should be treated as such, it’s time to grow up Kings, Queens, Princes & Princesses – put your costumes in the cupboard of History.
The British Royals who show themselves most humbly in the eyes of their chosen deity to pat the heads of their lesser humans across the Common Wealth!! It’s time to bring this charade to an end….
It’s also time for Australian Prime Minister Albanese to get behind the overwhelming public support for the freedom of Julian Assange & get DIRTY with Biden to release immediately this innocent human being from this unlawful incarceration.
LONG LIVE JOUNALIST JULIAN ASSANGE!!
If Julian Assange actually wrote this letter he has gone far beyond just being my greatest hero! To be beaten down, kicked, spit on, tortured, to have everyone turn their back on you and to be lying there dying, bleeding, your hopes and dreams crushed and to then get up no matter how slowly and still find the strength to give a big middle finger to the monstrous cowardly vampires that are determined to kill you is just about the goddamn most brave and inspiring thing I have been lucky enough to experience.
I agree with that bravery M. pompeo. And i must say, i did wonder if indeed, Julian actually wrote it.
Shakespeare always has a good answer.
” Speak the speech, I pray thee, trippingly on the tongue.”
So—maybe everyone in the UK and the US should mail Charles a copy of Julians’ letter. That is a good place to start.
In breaking news on Joe Biden’s War on Journalists …. Zakhar Prilepin survived the car bomb assassination attempt. His driver was killed, and the writer was serious condition with injuries to his legs, but is expected to survive this latest episode in the War on Journalists.
The countries that are the most dangerous for journalists to operate in all tend to be in the American Sphere of Influence. IIRC, our capitalist ally Mexico leads the latest lists. For journalists outside the American Sphere of Influence, bombs are a part of life, if the Empire does not like what you write.
My late mother was a limey royalty sycophant, she would roll over in her grave if she knew I posted this:
A member of the scumfuck Rothchild family reminding pedophile Jimmy’s buddy who’s in charge:
Now we know: King Rothschild reminding Prince Charles who’s in charge. : r/conspiracy (reddit.com)
The newly minted King of England represents only the horrors of royal leadership. A hypocritical infidel not fit to feed to the dogma empowered by his position to anyone who values human decency.
FREE ASSANGE or leave you shameless soul exposed to the world. Truly pathetic human bein . . . ., uh excuse for a human being!
The extremely tactful, untarnished intellect of the political prisoner, illicitly incarcerated journalist-publisher, Julian Assange, breathes for all of humanity!
The coronation of a King, in the ‘advanced’ year of 2023, is utterly farcical, in that it presupposes a hereditary monarchy, which elevates a specific element of the general class of Homo-sapiens, as a species more evolved than the general populace tells of humanities actual stagnation.
The charade is nothing more than a disgusting, extravagant “in-your-face”display of insensitivity.
It is the fraud of class of elites who see their entitlement privileges as innately endowed.
Hereditary ‘class’ structures, in whatever form they take, are the very antithesis of democracy.
Long live THE journalist extraordinaire, Julian Assange!
Insensitivity is just the tip of the iceberg Em. This day of volunteering really takes the cake:
“What is the Big Help Out for King Charles’s Coronation and how can you volunteer?”
People are being encouraged to volunteer in a nationwide initiative today in honour of the King’s decades of public service
The Big Help Out is a national day of volunteering taking place on Monday May 8 – two days after the King’s Coronation.
The scheme marks a formal part of the King’s Coronation celebrations, devised by the country’s top charities with the support of Buckingham Palace.
The day is aimed at inspiring people to try volunteering for the first time, with the hope of developing a new generation of volunteers.”
Telegraph UK 8th May
I have no problem with volunteering and do some myself. But this blatant use of people to help clear up the mess of the government is OTT in my opinion.
A powerful statement that will be read long after Julian and Charles are dust, if there is a “long after” in humanity’s future. Unfortunately, Britain has for too long been Washington’s vassal as Tony Blair was so eager to demonstrate when he became George W Bush’s “poodle dog” with the US invasion and destruction of Iraq. To expect the new king to break that relationship is to expect too much.
A copy of Julian’s letter should be placed in the mailbox of every elected politician in the Democrat Party, beginning with Joe Biden down to every member of the House and Senate who has ignored his or her responsibility for Assange’s continued incarceration, and particularly those who have pretensions of becoming the champions of social justice, none more than Bernie Sanders who, unforgivably has just given his full throated endorsement to another term for the most dangerous creature on the planet.
THE QUALITY OF MERCY IS NOT STRAINED
I’ve just tried to copy and paste it
I’m sure you all know it
Very relevant for the new monarch
As well as some world leaders!!!
Thank you Julian for your tourist piece on Belmarsh Prison
I think I’d prefer hell to Belmarsh any day
I do so hope and pray that the revenge hatred and wilful destruction suffered by some human beings on this beautiful Earth will elevate to heartfelt compassion and mercy to all.
May your freedom be its example Julian.
This is a splendid letter. And Mr Assange still continues his profession of journalism behind bars: I did not know that my country planned to create another twenty thousand prison cells.
Me neither Alex. Must be for the climate activists/anti monarchists/homeless/asylum seekers etc. (Not for the real criminals.)
While these wealthy SOBs get richer quicker – the masses starve on the streets or are relegated to prison cells. I guess the medieval monarchy sloth still reigns supreme. How many of you out there in la la land really see what is happening? A Coronation in 2023? AND an innocent journalist in prison for telling the truth??? For christ sake, wake the fuck up!
The “Sly” news invited people to send their message to Charlie boy on his coronation. It made for sickly reading except for this gem:
“After years of decline in the economy, tragic stories of families living in houses without heat or food, food banks being unable to meet demand and the NHS on its knees, do we really think a coronation of a king is the country’s priority when it comes to spending? I Iive in one of the most deprived areas of the UK, I work supporting the mental health of families and we also hand out an alarming number of food parcels to families unable to feed themselves. It’s devastating, and the coronation seems to amplify the feeling of wealth for the few and poverty for the masses. I don’t think I have any more emotions or time to spare for the royal family when we are battling war time situations on the ground. We seem to have become a nation that turns a blind eye to reality, a one that cheers on the regime’s that damage our economy. You can not celebrate at a time like this, you fight, you empty your cupboards to help those in need and you step up, without an audience, you change for the better. This coronation is a sign the higher powers are not willing to change, it’s entitlement over ethics.”
And the new thing of pledging alliegence those stupid buggers had to say. Medieval doesn’t begin to describe it. OMGodzilla.
This in today’s Guardian in an article about Julian’s letter:
“Albanese told journalists in the UK, where he is attending King Charles’ coronation, that the matter needed to be brought to a conclusion and he was continuing to raise it through diplomatic channels.”
“There is nothing to be served by his ongoing incarceration,” Albanese said. “And I am concerned about Mr Assange’s mental health. There was a court decision here in the United Kingdom that was overturned on appeal that went to Mr Assange’s health as well and I am concerned for him.”
Concern, concern. Then bloody well do something about it.
As imperial powers go the UK is probably the last one which is still hanging on. Other ex-imperial European powers have included France, Spain, Portugal, and even little Belgium who were busy carving out their established overseas niches but who eventually gave up the ghost, along with their penchant for royal families. But these imperial economies were challenged by the newcomers in the game: Germany and the United States.
The architect of US mercantilism was Alexander Hamilton (born 1755 or thereabouts – died 1804) who overcame the free-trade preferences of Thomas Jefferson in the early stages of US economic development; but it was the civil war – 1861-65 – essentially a conflict between the protectionist north and the free-trading south, which settled the issue. Ex Commander-in-Chief of the Union Army of the Potomac, Ulysses Simpson Grant, later to become US President argued that:
“For centuries England has relied on protection, has carried it to extremes and has obtained satisfactory results from it. There is no doubt that it is to this system that it owes its present strength. After two centuries, England has found it convenient to adopt free trade because it thinks that protection can no longer offer it anything. Very well then, gentlemen, my knowledge of our country leads me to believe that within 200 years, when America has gotten out of protection all that it can offer, it too will adopt free trade.”
Germany joined the club in due course.
In Germany, Friedrich List (1789-1846) who also had scant regard for any ‘free-market’ nonsense and the Ricardian corollary of comparative advantage was instrumental in promoting a system of political guidance from above as a policy for economic development.
‘’ … the first stage (of such a long-term policy) is one of adopting free-trade with more advanced nations as a means of raising themselves from a state of barbarism, and of making advances in agriculture; in the second stage, promoting the growth of manufactures, fisheries, navigation and foreign trade by means of commercial restrictions; and in the last stage, on after reaching the highest degree of wealth and power by gradually reverting to the principle of free-trade and of unrestricted competition in the home and in foreign markets’’. (2)
The UK, however has retained its dysfunctional Royal-Imperial model along with the lately grotesque US transformation from democracy into oligarchy. Such as was pointed out by the British historian Sir John Glubb in his great work ‘The Fate of Empires’
Would that not be an amazing thing, if the New King Charles did go and visit Julian Assange in Prison.
Maybe he could be a Real King, and do some Real Good.
Wouldn’t that be something!
Wow, what a brilliant exercise in sarcastic but biting truth by one of the world’s most important political prisoners! Assange has shown that his wit and his mind are as healthy as ever despite his confinement in a prison hell hole for no reason at all besides his journalistic work to expose the crimes of US imperialism. He must be freed immediately. Long live Julian Assange!
HEY KINGS CHUCKEE!!
and bloody pardon us
Y don’t ya take a walk up ladder street and a saunter down hemp lane ya tossa
This letter is heartbreaking. To think that such a courageous person is languishing behind bars when he could be doing so much good for the world is shameful. I thought of Oscar Wilde, who served time in 3 British prisons. Not too much has changed in the royal heads of England since Victorian times.
Mr Assange, you write with the wit and pithiness of St Thomas More. May you keep your humour and humanity during your trials. I will pray for you and your welfare.
John Shipton has sent a letter to Australian supporters of Julian; part of which reads:
On Wednesday 24th of May, barely two weeks away, President Biden will visit Sydney to participate in the Quad Leaders summit. This will be the first time a sitting US President has visited Australia in almost a decade – almost as long as Julian has been held in detention.
Around the country, I’m asking supporters to join me and visibly show their support by wearing a Free Assange shirt. Will you get one and pledge to wear it on the 24th?
Well, it is at least heartening to see that Assange has not lost his marbles and is, in fact, quite able to write so eloquently this biting letter to King Charles, which falls somewhere between sarcasm and snark. Bravo, Julian!
SHAME on the UK! …….SHAME on the USA! The imperial managers of the West press on with their persecution of Assange to both punish him for journalism and serve as abject example of what ANY journo ANYWHERE in the world could face if they dig too deeply into ANYTHING done by the empire. ……. Meanwhile, to the rest of the world, the persecution of Assange serves to expose the depraved/criminal nature of USA and UK political leadership. ………. It’s no wonder global sentiment is turning toward China for diplomatic/economic leadership.
On World Press Freedom Day, Medea Benjamin gets thrown out of a State Dept. press conference for asking a question about Assange.
……Then, with the irony completely lost on him, Blinken continues on extolling the virtues of theWest and its love of free expression and journalistic freedom.
It is very good to see that Julian has the intellectual vigour required to write something like this.
King Charles and Queen Camila, you are an example of love! show the people the greatness of your heart and the greatness of your soul. Demand and sign the release of Julian Assange, to see sun light after so many years of torture and abuse, to be with his little children, his wife, his family, his friends and all of us that love him so much.
The imprisoned journalist and publisher, invites the new monarch, King Charles III, to visit his own kingdom within a kingdom, His
Majesty’s Prison Belmarsh.
As a political prisoner, held, held at your Majesty’s pleasure on behalf of an embarrassed foreign sovereign.
“One can truly know the measure of society by how it treats it prisoners”
May mercy be the guiding of your kingdom, both within and without the wall of Belmarsh.
Visiting prison has been noteworthy of recent popes Jean-Paul and Francis. Even if King Charles III no longer claims the title Defender of the Faith, he can still be a model for humility and humanity by visiting Julian Assange. What a great start that would be!
Awesome, courageous and pithy, all concurrently, but that’s Julian Assange, evidently still alive.
Dear Julian,
As a pacifist and believer in the truth, I admire you from the U.S.
It pains me that you are being punished for your work in the service of exposing the ugly, hidden truths that governments try to hide from the very people who pay their salaries.
I wish you strength and look forward to your release.
Phyllis
Where does one go to learn to be a kind empathetic soul, not chained to the pecuniary extraction and power paradigm of capitalist behavior? The meek shall never inherit the earth. The strong and lustful shall sully any beauty where less aggressive mortals find succor.
The meek always inherit the earth – 6 feet under ..
Dearest Julian, held in the hearts, minds and prayers of so very many,
It is hard to know what to say when my government (the U.S.) has persecuted you from afar for so very many years now; all because, as you say, you embarrassed it for exposing some of its very many war crimes to the world’s eyes.
Perhaps the UK government has colluded with the U.S. in that regard, not only because it has willingly capitulated to ‘vassal State’ status, but also because they do not themselves wish to be embarrassed by any exposures of its own role in supporting such war crimes.
I try not to let discouragement about this situation, and your unjust imprisonment, get me to the point of despair or apathy. While it is true, in my observation, that we are living in a very dangerous, Orwellian dystopia, and led by seemingly soulless machines with one objective – to serve the machinery of the oligarchy in their quest for ever more lucre and power – this, too, is unsustainable. One way or another, justice will indeed be served. I pray, for your sake as well as that of all of us, that it is served sooner rather than later. Either way, it will be served. And the names of all those foul creatures who approved torture, imprisonment, and the unjust taking of lives, will be known by all. As will those of their victims.
Solitary confinement is a form of torture and yet is in common use in the uncivilized West, including Canada where I live. It is one thing to take away a person’s freedom yet another to condemn them to endless torture. The pitiful West knows no shame.
Charles is apparently a globalist like his father, who’s desire was summed up in his statement: “In the event that I am reincarnated, I would like to return as a deadly virus, in order to contribute something to solve overpopulation.”
Also see:
hxxps://www.technocracy.news/king-charles-plots-to-accelerate-un-2030-agenda-goals-and-complete-digitization-of-humanity/
Does anyone really think he is interested in freeing a courageous journalist who exposed crimes and deceit committed by other globalists in government?
This coronation lark is a travesty. Recently the Guardian have been publishing an exposé on the royals. Here is one of the articles referring to the wealth:
hxxps://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2023/may/04/why-we-put-royal-wealth-under-the-microscope-on-eve-of-coronation
(And it’s the public paying for this extravaganza costing millions)
> (And it’s the public paying for this extravaganza costing millions)
I am sure that a considerable majority of them are in favor, and have been glued to their TV sets watching the show. (I suspect an even larger majority would be in favor of deducting the costs from the aid supplied by the British government to the Kiev regime.)
I shan’t open the link provided by Valerie. I hope that others might also wish to avoid enlarging the number of hits on that website.
This rag has for years been one of Julian’s worst tormentors. Dump The Guardian!
…. but they have no shame ….
Well put, Mr.Assange. But whether the sycophantic ‘Advisors ‘ to the King will ever let him see this, remains to be seen, I fear.
I was going to say, i wonder if he’ll even read it. It’s a bloody good letter.
Perhaps it could be read aloud to him – from the top of the Tower of London…
Extremely unlikely I think. His advisors will treat it like a crank letter, and bin it. And then deny all knowledge of it if asked in the future.