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Deepl Translation from French<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This difficult trip to\nEurope from September 3 to 11, 2020 was in many ways a feat. I could never have\nimagined, when a year ago I decided to take a closer look at the English courts\nwhere Julian Assange was to appear, that the following year I would be\ntravelling the familiar roads of Europe in an atmosphere of health apocalypse,\nintense political tension and the destruction of a way of life, values, legal\nsystems, and everything that has made up our culture. I am obliged to place the\ntrial of Julian Assange in the context of this form of collective suicide of\nour societies that is in reality the \u00ab\u00a0coronavirus crisis\u00a0\u00bb and to link\nthe two phenomena, even if some will think that it is exaggerated, and that the\npersecution of an innocent man has nothing to do with the deaf atmosphere of\nfear in which millions of us have been living for the last 6 months. Too bad.\nThis is my vision and my analysis. What little freedom of expression we have\nleft, I use it fully and without masks before they are able to gag us and lock\nus up for good. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
I left France with relief\non September 3, feeling, for the first time in my life, that the country I\nchose to live in 28 years ago has been transformed into an open-air psychiatric\nhospital. The cynicism of the politicians competed with the price of violence\nwith a hideous police and hygienist dictatorship imposed by illegal decrees by\nauthoritarian prefects in the purest Vichy tradition. The West has already\nexperienced many periods of madness – the last and most destructive was the\ncollective madness of fascism and the war of the 1930s and 40s, but 1914-18 as\nthe collective suicide of European culture was also significant. The Yugoslavs\nof 1990-98 were accused of \u00ab\u00a0committing suicide of their Nation\u00a0\u00bb, but\ntoday’s Westerners can no longer serve as a model of democracy and reason for\nanyone! The date of Julian Assange’s trial struck me, September 7, 2020\nbeing the 80th anniversary of the beginning of the \u00ab\u00a0Blitz\u00a0\u00bb –\nOperation Seel\u00f6we, Hitler’s planned invasion of Britain<\/strong>, replaced in\nextremis by 57 days and nights of continuous bombing of British homes and\nfactories by Nazi aviation. This date is also the symbol of the Resistance of\nthe English people to fascism, and the beginning of the end of the victorious\nmarch of German Nazism on Europe. If the British elites have decided to cast a\nveil of oblivion over this date, it has not escaped me thanks to authors like\nJoshua Levine[1]<\/a>\n. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Imposition of the\ncompulsory mask everywhere in the streets, parks, gardens, suburban fields,\noffices, workshops, transport, stores, the rare cultural and social places\nstill resistant … 22H out of 24 for many proletarians. Wearing a muzzle mask\npreventing breathing and expression for all children and young people in\nFrance, chicanes and punishments for those who ask to have their say. Children\nexcluded from school because of pseudo covid tests, deprived of education due\nto school closures that are completely illegal under the UN Convention on the\nRights of the Child, not to mention our Constitution and other fundamental\ntexts… Police prohibition of gatherings and demonstrations. Paris city is\nempty again, because nobody wants to walk around with a muzzle and fear in\ntheir stomachs to see the cops coming to fine you for not being physically fit.\nThe bars on the banks of the Seine empty again of young people even though they\nare the rare places where you can remove for an hour or two our symbol of\nsubmission to Macron and the covidian ideology. How to kill economically,\nsocially and politically a city, a nation, a country. I felt the atmosphere\nheavy with police threats and I was looking forward to airing myself elsewhere.\nBut I hadn’t yet seen the real state of Europe…<\/p>\n\n\n\n Germany Declares Embargo\non France<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n The day before my\ndeparture I consult the website of the German embassy in France and I have the\nunpleasant surprise to read that our powerful neighbor has decreed France a\npestiferous zone and imposed a quarantine on travelers coming from the Ile de\nFrance, the South of France and the West Indies. How do the Germans intend\nto check who comes from where, knowing that public transportation (trains and\nbuses) to their homes leave from Paris?<\/strong> The German government site does not\nprovide details. As always in the covid affair, media discourse and real police\nviolence take the place of law, the rule of law has been relegated in our\ncountries to the status of a memory of the \u00ab\u00a0old times\u00a0\u00bb as opposed to\nthe \u00ab\u00a0New World\u00a0\u00bb that the left is still hoping for.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The answer was given to\nme the next day in the heavy atmosphere of shouting, insults and tension that\nreigns at the low-cost Bercy station now in the hands of the German monopoly\ncompany Flixbus. 25 people are waiting to board the Paris-Berlin, in the dirt\nof a station that has never been cleaned and suffocating under the obligatory\nmask obstructing their airways, while the two Polish bus drivers shout\ndirectives and threats in bad English. We wait for an hour standing like docile\ncattle who don’t know what sauce they will be eaten with. The drivers forbid us\nto put our bags in the bus luggage because of new \u00ab\u00a0measures\u00a0\u00bb from\nGermany declaring France a \u00ab\u00a0red zone\u00a0\u00bb, we have to show our identity\npapers to the drivers first and fill in a strange \u00ab\u00a0Passenger Locator\nCard\u00a0\u00bb certificate<\/strong>. This A4 sheet of paper talks about \u00ab\u00a0special\nrules\u00a0\u00bb (special standards) which now apply to passengers from France\ndeclared \u00ab\u00a0high risk area\u00a0\u00bb by the \u00ab\u00a0authorities of Germany\u00a0\u00bb\n(who?). We have to fill in the form because omitting or hiding information can\nbe punished by a \u00ab\u00a0fine of 25 000 Euros\u00a0\u00bb. The form requires to know\nwhere we come from, our names and dates of birth, our nationality, our telephone\nnumber, the address where we will stay and the addresses where we will be going\nin the next 14 days. At the bottom I see a \u00ab\u00a0covid health\u00a0\u00bb\nquestionnaire – do you have fever, cough, loss of taste and smell. The last\nquestion asks if you have had the covid test, what was its result and in which\ncountry it was done!<\/p>\n\n\n\n People are as if stunned\nby the violence of the charge, sensing the monstrous illegality of the thing,\nbut not being able to defend themselves as hostages of the Flixbus firm that\ncan refuse them to travel. A man nevertheless protests that he has paid for his\nticket and that there is no question of him not getting on the bus. The two\nPolish drivers, a man and a woman, are visibly terrorized themselves but\nfulfill their role as kapos by shouting violently at the man, calling private\nsecurity guards from the station and threatening that the \u00ab\u00a0Polizei\u00a0\u00bb\nwill take care of him in Berlin if he does not fill out the form. I am very\nworried and upset, especially since a rude Ukrainian woman is pushing me in the\nback to pass me in front. But I calm things down by speaking softly in Polish\nto the two drivers. My words bring a little humanity in this madness and the\nwoman ends up doing her job and check in the passengers, their luggage and\ninstall them in the bus. She ends up making us fill in the forms and takes them\nfrom our hands (I don’t fill in the addresses and the \u00ab\u00a0did you get the\ncovid\u00a0\u00bb part. After all I bought a ticket to Poland, Germany is only a\ntransit). We leave relieved. While Flixbus has condemned the toilets because of\n\u00ab\u00a0coronavirus\u00a0\u00bb, the Polish driver ends up behaving like a real\nprofessional: he knows that they are transporting humans and not a load of\ncattle in a leaded wagon over 1300 km from Paris to Berlin. Once far from\nBercy, he opens the door to the toilets so we can use them. He even stops in\nthe night on a highway area for a break forbidden by his employer. All the\nmasks fall off during the night, and I am relieved to see the marked but human\nface of the woman driver so stressed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Violations of Rights in\nEurope<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n I then review the Flixbus\nform and any violations of the laws immediately jump out at me. The form\ndoes not mention any institution: which institution in Germany has decreed\nFrance as a \u00ab\u00a0high risk zone\u00a0\u00bb? On what legal basis? A decree? A law? A\ncircular? One is not allowed to threaten people with punishment or fines just\nlike that on a piece of paper without any in the head of a public institution\nand to make the employees of the private company, in this case Flixbus, bear\nthe responsibility for the threats<\/strong>. Flixbus as a private company is guilty\nof many violations of rights by forcing its customers to provide it with\ninformation as sensitive as the state of health of its customers (\u00ab\u00a0did you\nhave cough, fever, did you do the covid test and what was the result\u00a0\u00bb?),\ntheir residential addresses in several countries, their phone numbers. I\nsuspect that the \u00ab\u00a0Polizei\u00a0\u00bb that serves as a scarecrow is a\nstorytelling designed to scare us, as often in both the Assange and Covid\ncases. Indeed, we cross the border without any control by the border police,\nwho don’t seem to want to participate in arbitrary measures of\n\u00ab\u00a0Covidian\u00a0\u00bb madness. She leaves that to the employees of Flixbus…<\/p>\n\n\n\n We are two hours late\nwhen we arrive in Berlin the next morning. \nI have only one hour left for my bus to Poland. But as we arrive at the\nZOB \u00ab\u00a0(Zentraler Omnibus Banhof), a disturbing event occurs: the bus enters\nthe station parking lot, turns a little and then goes back out again. The\npassengers get up from their seats worried: where are we being taken to, locked\nin this metal box? <\/p>\n\n\n\n The bus bypasses the ZOB\nand a kind of \u00ab\u00a0camp\u00a0\u00bb appears, made up of white tents behind security\nbarriers guarded by men in uniform. Later I will see that the camp was stamped\n\u00ab\u00a0Deutsches Rotes Kreuz\u00a0\u00bb, German Red Cross. The bus stalled in front\nof the camp without opening the door and the \u00ab\u00a0policemen\u00a0\u00bb approached.\nThe passengers panic. The Polish driver is afraid. She lets go of \u00ab\u00a0Polizei\nPolizei\u00a0\u00bb, shouts that we are not going to get out if we do not obey and if\nwe do not do the covid test, while handing out the famous forms. In fact, they\nare private security guards, obviously migrants. I turn to the driver and tell\nher in Polish that I am not going to Germany but to Poland and that in this\ncase forcing people to take a medical test is illegal. Her colleague then opens\nthe door and everything goes very quickly. I get out first and run to the\nprivate security guard. I shout to him in German, my ticket in hand, \u00ab\u00a0I’m\nnot going to Germany but to Poland, my bus is leaving right now! \u00ab\u00a0He looks\nme in the eyes and he understands that I understood: \u00ab\u00a0Take your luggage\nand save yourself\u00a0\u00bb he shouts to me. I don’t ask for anything else, I grab\nmy backpack and run with all my strength to put as much distance between me and\nthe bus as possible. I run into the parking lot of the ZOB. A man comes up to\nme and asks me if I am \u00ab\u00a0from Paris\u00a0\u00bb. I am afraid he is an undercover\ncop and I say \u00ab\u00a0nein\u00a0\u00bb! At all costs not to be identified with France,\nthe country of the pestiferous!<\/p>\n\n\n\n I can only rest when I\nsee that life is going more or less normally in this big train station in the\ncapital of Germany. Almost no masks, except on the buses when getting on, a\npizzeria that works, travelers who behave normally, far from the madness in\nwhich we have been living for the last 6 months in France. The bus to Poland is\nalmost empty, the driver is relaxed. A 70-year-old Polish co-traveller tells me\nabout her life in the town of Police, a large industrial city on the outskirts\nof Szczecin, a mecca for the chemical industry built by Popular Poland and\nprivatized for the benefit of the German oligarchs. She tells me that her\nfamily from the \u00ab\u00a0East\u00a0\u00bb, the Ukrainian territories, rebuilt the city\nfrom ruins, but also used the houses and objects of the former German inhabitants\ndriven out of Potsdam by the Allied decisions. In one hour I am entitled to a\nbeautiful humanistic reflection on the madness of the war, those who suffered\nfrom it on both sides of the German-Polish border now on the Oder and on\nreconciliation between peoples. She is proud to tell me her story as a Polish\nworker and also to call herself \u00ab\u00a0anticlerical\u00a0\u00bb by announcing the\nnon-religious marriage of her daughter, which for a Polish woman is an\nimportant mark of left-wing convictions. Poland as this woman presents it to me\nfills me with happiness and love. It is this Poland that I would like to see\nrevived in freedom and dignity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n We are in an acute phase\nof the struggle – the dictatorship that is descending on everyone’s personal\nlife makes it no longer possible to close our eyes to this hideous face of\ncapitalism. The Polish Facebook groups \u00ab\u00a0Stop the Health\nDictatorship\u00a0\u00bb and \u00ab\u00a0Commission of Inquiry into the Abuses of the\nHealth Dictatorship<\/strong>\u00a0\u00bb have tens of thousands of Poles who suddenly\nawaken to civic life when they discover that the remnants of their personal\nfreedoms are being abolished, that people die in front of the doors of public\nhospitals because doctors refuse to treat them \u00ab\u00a0without covid test nothing\nis possible\u00a0\u00bb, that children are mistreated and even tortured by school\ndirectors when they can no longer stand the mask 8 hours a day. Children are\nalso already excluded from school immediately for not wearing the mask. Polish\nparents must accept that their children are taken away from them and placed in\n\u00ab\u00a0institutions\u00a0\u00bb if they have a fever or a cold… or are deprived of\nschool, a serious violation of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child.\nSuddenly the citizens, deprived of citizen’s rights, find themselves confronted\nwith the need to fight for this citizenship and the European revolt in Berlin\non August 29th was the starting point of this insurrection. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Precisely the formular of\nFlixbus violates several rights guaranteed by the European Charter of\nFundamental Rights: Article 3<\/strong> which guarantees the\nright to integrity and in particular the \u00ab\u00a0free and informed consent\u00a0\u00bb\nof the person \u00ab\u00a0in the field of medicine and biology\u00a0\u00bb, Article 6\nguaranteeing \u00ab\u00a0liberty<\/strong>\u00a0\u00bb – (what about the practice of bringing\ncaptive persons in a metal box for a forced test other than a deprivation of\nliberty?). Then there is Article 45 guaranteeing \u00ab\u00a0the right to move and\nreside freely within the Union space\u00a0\u00bb<\/strong> and finally, the important\nArticle 8 on \u00ab\u00a0protection of personal data\u00a0\u00bb stipulating that personal\ndata may only be collected within the framework of the Law and on the basis of\nthe person’s consent and with a guarantee of access to this data[2]<\/a>. Flixbus has absolutely\nNO right to collect as a private company these personal data on the health and\nlocation of citizens traveling in the EU.<\/strong> But there are so many Fundamental\nHuman Rights violated since the deprivation of liberty of 400 million Europeans\ncalled \u00ab\u00a0confinement\u00a0\u00bb by the Covidian propaganda that all the levees\nbetween democracy and dictatorship are easily breached… Also these\narbitrary practices violate articles 3 of the Universal Declaration of Human\nRights <\/strong>(right to liberty), article 13 (right to freedom of movement),\narticle 12 (protection of privacy)[3]<\/a> . Even the Lisbon Treaty\nthat we on the left have criticized so much is blithely violated, especially Article\n2 ensuring \u00ab\u00a0the free movement of persons\u00a0\u00bb[4]<\/strong><\/a>!\n<\/strong>The UN Covention Political and Civil Rights has also been violated by the\npolicy of pseudo-sanitary confinement of the population (Article 12\nguaranteeing freedom of movement within the framework of one’s country) while\nmandatory covid tests violate Article 7 of the Covention \u00ab\u00a0In\nparticular, it is prohibited to subject a person without his free consent to\nmedical or scientific experimentation\u00a0\u00bb.<\/strong> Moreover, while the Convention\nallows exceptional derogations in case of \u00ab\u00a0serious threat to the life of\nthe Nation\u00a0\u00bb, they can only be limited in time and above all do not concern\narticles as fundamental as the prohibition of medical experiments . <\/p>\n\n\n\n It is also necessary to\nunderline how much the embargo policy to which Germany subjects France with the\npseudo health argument is also a violation of the equality between the States\nsupposed to be guaranteed by the European Treaties… The French people are\npresented by the propaganda of powerful States such as Germany as dangerous for\nthe \u00ab\u00a0health\u00a0\u00bb of Europe as if they were carriers of the contagious\ndisease of revolt! In September 2020, the spectre of the Vienna system of 1815,\nwhen the reactionary kingdoms united for 100 years to isolate France guilty of\nRevolution, looms over Europe! In this atmosphere of madness it is not\nsurprising that the city of Szczecin, formerly a large industrial port, now\nlandlocked and decrepit, seemed to me on September 4, 2020 a haven of peace. I\nhadn’t forgotten, however, that the only protests during the closure of the\nwhole of Europe in March and April took place right here: in the cities on the\nGerman-Polish border, desperate citizens braved the police in forbidden\ndemonstrations because the closure of the border had deprived these\ncross-border workers of their livelihood. Depriving people of a livelihood: another\nviolation of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, whose articles 23 and\n25 guarantee the right to work and the right to a decent income!<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n The End of the Rule of\nLaw in Europe?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Faced with so much\narbitrariness I was not at all sure I would be able to cross back through\nNorthern Europe and arrive in England for the trial of Julian Assange as I left\nSzczecin accompanied by the Polish left-wing activist Basia W. The familiar\nPoland-Germany-Belgium-Belgium-France route that I have known by heart since I\nwas born seemed to me to be suddenly full of pitfalls and dangers. Before\nleaving we fill in the obligatory form to return to Great Britain with our telephone\nnumbers, our residence and stay addresses and the numbers of relatives \u00ab\u00a0to\nbe contacted if you have infected someone with the coronavirus\u00a0\u00bb even\nthough we are not as Poles subject to quarantine.<\/p>\n\n\n\n If the journey from\nSzczecin to Berlin was without problems, Berlin without tourists, empty\nrestaurants on a Saturday evening of the first weekend of September seemed\nstrange and sinister to me. The inhabitants, even in revolt, even unmasked in\nthe streets, even without the alarmist announcements in the transport system\n(\u00ab\u00a0against the coronavirus together let’s stay mobilized\u00a0\u00bb in the\nParisian subway strangely echoing the terrorist attacks of 1995), remained calm\nat home. The Berlin-Rotterdam bus was therefore almost empty too. Driven by a\nPolish driver who was as scared as those on the Paris-Berlin route, our bus was\nstopped in the middle of the night by an unmarked car in the middle of the\ncountryside. We were ordered to get out and lined up in a row by two tall blond\nmen in civilian clothes and armed like the French \u00ab baqueux \u00bb\n(violent special police). In this agonizing atmosphere we didn’t even know\nwhere we were, in Germany or the Netherlands. <\/p>\n\n\n\n The men, without any\npolice insignia, (they could very well have been highway robbers or mafia guys)\nwere questioning the travelers about their destination in Rotterdam and the\nreasons for their trip and stay.<\/strong> Arbitrary and totally\nillegal, especially since they are not Border Police. A mother who had left her\nthree small children on the bus was ordered to extract them in order to present\nthem to the \u00ab\u00a0cops\u00a0\u00bb outside. Before my turn, I ask the Polish driver\nhow he knew that those who order him to stop in the middle of the night are\nindeed policemen, because \u00ab\u00a0it’s scary to see them stop like that on the road\u00a0\u00bb.\nThe driver pointed to the light panel on the back of the car \u00ab\u00a0police\nfollow me\u00a0\u00bb, which seemed to me to be a very light sign of recognition. He\nadded: \u00ab\u00a0And again, you haven’t seen what they are capable of doing! During\nmy previous trip they lined us up with the luggage as if they were going to\nshoot us\u00a0\u00bb! The word is pronounced, anxiety rises. Having perhaps heard\nthis exchange, the Dutch \u00ab baqueux \u00bb opens his jacket and a logo\nappears, supposedly representing his police force, but still without any\nidentification number. When it was my turn, the man checks my Polish identity\ncard, asks me where I live and where I’m going and what I’m going to do in\nRotterdam. Nothing, I go to London to look for work, like so many Polish\nmigrants. And how long are you going to stay in Great Britain? Migrant answer:\nas long as the work lasts. With such a questioning, freedom of movement has\nindeed ceased to exist in Europe.<\/p>\n\n\n\n On Sunday morning, the\nRotterdam train station, so close to the big port that you can hear the\nseagulls screaming, looks like a capitalist glass monster. It looks like the\nhideous district of Brussels where the institutions of the European Union are\nconcentrated. Yet we are happy to discover a cafe without masks and without\nhygienic madness: if the Dutch police protect their country from intruders, it\nis because the very globalist elites of this country have the ability to\nprotect their own citizens from the madness reigning elsewhere. So people are\nliving normally in the Netherlands and on the Flixbus that arrives two hours\nlater to take us to London via Lille and Calais the heavy and violent\natmosphere of France and a little bit of Germany has faded away. Only a few\nyoung people look like they are masked but it must be said that precisely,\nbeing in full health, they do not yet realize to what extent they subject their\nlungs to the strain of breathing under the synthetic fiber product.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In Lille many French\ntravelers get on the bus and we are now on the last stage of the journey which\nseems to me the most difficult: the passage in Calais in front of the British\nand French police before the Eurostar tunnel. Since my 14 trips for the trial\nof Julian Assange I know the places, yet everything seems strange to me since\nthe authoritarian hysteria of the \u00ab\u00a0coronaguerre\u00a0\u00bb. Fortunately, the\nFrench policemen don’t overdo it. While they are young, they are tired under\ntheir masks 8 hours a day behind their glass guardhouse and take off their\nget-up as soon as an opportunity arises. We take off ours to show them our\nfaces. We are like the Saudi women who keep the black abaya permanently but\nhave to lift a piece of the \u00ab\u00a0secret\u00a0\u00bb to show their faces to the\nborder control. We’re tired of dragging our luggage through the checkpoint\nscanner. Then we get back on the bus and go back down for the English control.\nSurprise. The passage that I dreaded so much goes smoothly: the British\npolice officers do not check the famous attestations at all!<\/strong> Even French\ntravelers theoretically subject to quarantine are not worried! So the famous\nquarantine turns out to be one more storytelling!<\/strong> The British police tell\nmy Polish colleague something about quarantine that she doesn’t understand well\nbut the paper she gives her refers to the website\nhttps:\/\/visas-immigration.service.gov.uk\/public-health-passenger-locator-form\nwith the form we already filled in. So we are in order with the British\nadministration. The rest of the trip goes smoothly, we cross the channel, drive\non the Kent freeway in the afternoon and arrive at Victoria Coach Station in the\nevening of Sunday September 6th.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The City of London\nCorporation is neither the City of London nor Great Britain.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n In the evening we move\ninto the rented apartment in central London, not far from the Old Bailey, the\ncourt where the trial is to take place and we decide to see what the place\nlooks like. It is over 9 pm when we walk around the Old Bailey: a huge complex\nof several buildings surrounded by no less imposing office buildings of banks\nand other businesses under which there are deep underground passages visible at\nthe huge truck gates. The Old Bailey consists of a 19th century building next\nto an austere bunker from the 1960s. There are already two entrance doors on\nthe fa\u00e7ade – the Central Criminal Court door looks as if it receives visitors,\nas barriers mark the entrance and a window displays the hearings of Friday,\nSeptember 4. A closed carriage entrance bars the carriage entrance to the\nWarwick Passage, which leads to the back of the Old Bailey. <\/p>\n\n\n\n We walk around the block,\nphotographing a 17th century church and the \u00ab\u00a0Amen Court\u00a0\u00bb, a small\nneighbourhood of 17th century houses that survived the Nazi bombing of the rear\nof the Court that seriously damaged this central area. We also find ourselves\nat the rear of the complex, at the exit of the \u00ab\u00a0Warwick Passage\u00a0\u00bb –\nthe Old Bailey complex is a huge complex with wide and high windows, some of\nwhich may be apartments and not offices. Surprisingly, on Sunday night there\nis light in the court rooms. The top two floors, 4th and 5th, are even\nilluminated with a strange bluish light.<\/strong> Behind the building is a small\nsquare with a bench, a parking lot and the main entrance for the court\nemployees. Leaving the parking lot we can walk around the complex on our left\nand return to the historic 19th century \u00ab\u00a0Old Bailey\u00a0\u00bb with its high\ntower and statue of Justice at the top. We then walk along the 17th century\n\u00ab\u00a0Maison de la guilde des Couteliers\u00a0\u00bb with its French inscriptions\nwhich is part of the complex and a modern building where the Axa offices were\nstill located in July. Everywhere, in every corner of the complex, no less than\n4 large carriage gates lead to underground passages. By which way will Julian\nAssange be brought to trial? We cannot know and the lawyers have obviously\ngiven no indication. We are therefore photographing the premises to better\nprepare ourselves.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Above all the doors is\nthe coat of arms of the \u00ab\u00a0City of London Corporation\u00a0\u00bb<\/strong> – the two\nwinged lions wearing helmets above the red cross of St. George on a white\nbackground. Indeed, the City of London Corporation is not the City of London, it\nis the historic enclave of bankers and merchants,<\/strong> their fiefdom older than\nEngland and older than the United Kingdom. Julian Assange does not appear here\nbefore a court under the British Ministry of Justice, but he is brought to a\nplace, a building belonging to the City of London, the famous stronghold of the\nbankers. For even if the Central Criminal Court is indeed a British court that\nsits in this place, Julian Assange is not going to be judged by the official\njudges of the Central Criminal Court.<\/strong> In fact, in the rented hall of the\nOld Bailey, we are no longer on British territory. We are in the City. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Indeed, the Old Bailey\nCriminal Court is owned and operated by the City of London Corporation.<\/strong>\nThe City of London Corporation has been the historic heart of London since its\nfoundation by the Romans and then during the reign of the Anglo-Saxons. It is a\nprivate association of merchants and bankers. William the Conqueror gave a\nseries of privileges to this association called the City of London, including\nthe right to be self-administered by the Council of Elders \u00ab\u00a0The Court of\nAldermen\u00a0\u00bb. His successor chose to build his capital in the town of\nWestminster, which thus became the new capital, now the City of London. The City\nof London, which is a business association administering a territory, won in\n1186 the privilege of choosing its mayor, the Lord Mayor of London.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Today the Lord Major of\nLondon is one of the oldest elective offices in the world. He represents the\ninterests of the banking sector established in the territory of the City of\nLondon and the few residents. He is therefore automatically Rector of the\nUniversity of London and Admiral of the Port of London, which gives him a great\ndeal of power independent of the government of Great Britain. The Corporation\nis the supreme power of the City including the richest of the City (Court\nAldermen) and the Mayor himself. Despite the fact that he is supposed to pledge\nallegiance to the Crown of Great Britain, the annual Tempel Bar<\/em> ceremony\nwhere the King or Queen has to wait for the Mayor to give him the right to\nenter the City shows the extent of his power and proves that the suzerainty of\nthe Queen of England is purely symbolic. The Government of Great Britain as\nwell as the Parliament of the country have no real or symbolic power over the\nterritory of the City of London Corporation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The Old Bailey Court is\nadministered by two sheriffs representing the banking guilds of the City.<\/strong>\nThe Major of the City of London is the head of the administration of the Court\nand has the prerogative to sit on it as a matter of right as well. The\nAdministrator of Mansion House, the seat of the Mayor of the City of London, is\nalso the head of the Central Criminal Court. Since 2017 the Executive Director\nof Mansion House and the Central Criminal Court is financier Vic Annells. The\nMayor of the City of London is currently Alderman William Russell, a banker\nwith the American bank Meryll Linch.<\/strong> The two sheriffs elected in 2019 by\ntheir peers are banker Alderman Michael Mainelli has been a manager for the\nCity’s Anglo-American investment funds, for agencies of the Ministry of Defence\nand for Deutsche Morgan Grefell, and sheriff Christopher Hayward is linked to\nChina’s interests as head of the board of the Sichuan Business Association.<\/strong>\nBoth sheriffs administer the Criminal Court Old Bailey owned by the City of\nLondon and are required to reside there for the duration of their tenure[5]<\/a>. <\/p>\n\n\n\n I knew this information\nbefore I saw the place, but I was not surprised to read on the notice board at\nthe entrance to the \u00ab\u00a0bunker\u00a0\u00bb part of the Old Bailey that this place\nwas the producer of the famous British \u00ab\u00a0Maritime Law\u00a0\u00bb – the law\nestablished in this court managed all the ships of the English and British navy\nduring its conquest of the world from the Middle Ages until today as well as\nthe territories of the British colonies. The maritime law dependent on the Old\nBailey also extended to the territories established and managed by the Virginia\nCompany of London, in other words to the 13 founding states of the United\nStates[6]<\/strong><\/a>.<\/strong>\nThe Constitution of the United States of the Americas and their Declaration of\nIndependence of July 4, 1776 does not define the territory of the United\nStates, nor their languages, nor their customs, in short, everything that makes\na nation … some Anglo-Saxon thinkers believe that the United States remains\nde iure (and de facto?) a colony of the City of London Corporation and are\ntherefore not a true state. Certainly independent of the \u00ab\u00a0English\nKing\u00a0\u00bb as their Declaration proclaims it, but still dependent on the\nbankers of the City of London Corporation?<\/p>\n\n\n\n Julian Assange had braved\nboth, the royal power of the Queen of England and that of the United States of\nAmerica (former?) colonies of the City of London.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n The City of London\nCorporation’s muscular welcome<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Our ballade carried out,\nwe enter a Pakistani grocery store to buy what to dine. It is then that the\nheaviest and most muscular police attack of all our stay occurs. Two policemen\nin uniforms enter the store as we approach the cash register. I am surprised,\nthey are not there for a robbery, we are just going to pay our purchases.\nWhat’s going on? One of the policemen summons my French colleague to abandon\nher shopping and go out. We don’t understand what’s going on but we obey,\nbecause we are so used to obeying the police even when what they do is illegal.\nI think it’s a mistake, especially since the man, tall, white, young, muscular\nand redheaded, dressed in black, carrying a weapon (taser?) and various\nparaphernalia tells us to go out \u00ab\u00a0for information\u00a0\u00bb. But once out in\nfront of the store, the three of us are surrounded by no less than six\npolicemen, three men and three women, who obey the orders of a small redheaded\nman dressed in civilian clothes and equipped with an earpiece and a\nwalkie-talkie who is standing next to a car that we hadn’t even noticed. We are\nquite shocked, especially since they demand to separate us and talk to each cop\nseparately. We are foreigners, my Polish colleague has just set foot in England\nthe first time, I am worried about her. The situation is very tense and\nshocking.<\/p>\n\n\n\n What do they blame us\nfor? For having taken pictures of the Old Bailey during our walk!<\/strong> I\nanswer that it is not forbidden to take pictures of the Court, there is no sign\nand besides I had already taken pictures of the whole building last July\nwithout any problem. I knew that there were cameras everywhere, but as it is\nnot forbidden,<\/strong> I didn’t think that the private security guards who watch\nthe banks would immediately call the police when they saw three women walking\nin front of the Old Bailey and reading the billboard in front of the door! They\nare not London policemen, by the way. They are City of London Corporation\npolice. They are wearing white and red checkered caps and the City logo is on\ntheir uniforms. That said, they are young and their clothes look strangely new.\nEmotionally we don’t notice it right away, but the three young women who take\nus aside, have very studied hairstyles as if they had just come out of a\nhairdressing studio for a film shoo<\/strong>t. The one who searches me wears small\nbraids that are very complicated to do yourself and to maintain – in security\njobs, women are most often wearing a ponytail that is easy and quick to do. <\/p>\n\n\n\n They demand to see our\nID, two of us don’t carry it with us, after all we’re just out for a walk in\nthe neighborhood. They tell us that the credit card is enough and copy our\nnames from these documents. Then they demand to see our photos. We have to open\nthe two cameras that my Polish colleague had used. \u00ab\u00a0What’s this?\u00a0\u00bb?\n-asked one of the men pointing to the only photo on my camera, two lighted\nwindows of the Old Bailey but which could come from any building. I simply\nanswer \u00ab\u00a0I don’t know, a building with lit windows\u00a0\u00bb. Another\nquestioned my French colleague about the photo of the 17th century Guilde\nChurch of St. Martin on Lutgate Hill. Her answer is \u00ab\u00a0it’s a church. Polish\nwomen are necessarily interested in churches! It’s starting to feel very\nstrange to be questioned like that. The cops quickly quoted something that\nlooks like an article of law but they did it so quickly that we didn’t\nunderstand anything. One starts to speak to them. We are foreign tourists who\nhave just arrived in London. We hardly put the foot in the apartment of hiring\nand made our first ballade in the center of London. We made photographs of a\nbuilding certainly official, but historical that it is not forbidden to\nphotograph. So What? <\/p>\n\n\n\n So the strange policemen\nof the City of London tell us that what counts is \u00ab\u00a0intention! And the\nintention is to commit a terrorist act\u00a0\u00bb! Indeed, under the\n\u00ab\u00a0Terrorism Act\u00a0\u00bb it is forbidden to photograph a building where a\n\u00ab\u00a0very sensitive trial\u00a0\u00bb will take place the next day! Here we are…\nthe City of London Corporation cops are hunting for Julian Assange’s supporters\nwho would come near the Court! <\/strong>This is starting to make me anxious. I’m not\ngoing to start again with the illegal repression like the one I suffered in\nGreece from 2009 to 2013. We have to get out of this situation! We explain that\nwe only took tourist photos of historical buildings. It’s at night, we are\nthree foreign women surrounded by 6 weird cops who don’t behave like real\nprofessionals but like a private militia – yes the City of London police is not\na state police since the City of London Corporation is not a state or even a\ncity but a curious hybrid territory belonging to private companies to which the\nQueen of England confers the privilege to have their own police. We are no\nlonger in Great Britain, we are in a territory managed by a private\nassociation, some would say a mafia. What about our rights, when this territory\nhas not signed a bilateral agreement with our countries? Can our consuls help\nus?<\/p>\n\n\n\n When the young\ninterrogator asks me why I photograph these modern buildings, I give him a\nhistory lesson on the anniversary of the Blitz and the suffering that the\npeople of London endured under the Nazi bombings. I am sensitive as a Pole\nwhose country was completely destroyed by the Nazis to this terrible story of\nthe destruction of the historic heart of London and its reconstruction after\nthe war. I wanted to show my young Polish friend the contrast between the\nremains of 17th century architecture and the buildings rebuilt in the 1950s and\n1960s. The man seemed a little impressed by my lecture and gave me a similar\nspeech about his family during the Blitz. In fact, I don’t listen to him, I’m\nstressed at the thought of what might happen now. Indeed, it’s not over yet.<\/p>\n\n\n\n They are looking for\nsomething and they reveal themselves quickly. Each of us is separately summoned\nto say whether we know Julian Assange and what we think of him. And if she\ncomes for the trial. No way. We answer all the same thing, we came as Poles\nlooking for work and as we are in the city center we take a tourist tour. The\ncop who questions me is mocking. She asks me where we live, I give the street.\nThe apartment is obviously too expensive for migrant women. I answer her\n\u00ab\u00a0it’s an opportunity\u00a0\u00bb, adding that at my age I have more money than my\nyoung colleague. She asks me questions about the job I’m going to do, and when\nI’m going to come back. She insists on Julian Assange, I can see that she\ndoesn’t believe me, I’m tempted to tell the truth, after all we’re not doing\nanything wrong.<\/strong> We are not violating any Law as a Human Rights Association.\nIt is they who violate the Laws by holding a man hostage for years and having\nhim tried by a pseudo-court of private companies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In the end all three of\nus end up saying \u00ab\u00a0since you tell us that this trial is sensitive and that\nit is so important and that it is not forbidden to attend it, then yes, we want\nto go\u00a0\u00bb!<\/p>\n\n\n\n It’s not over yet. The\nbullying continues. While the young cops seemed to have finished their exercise\nof control over us, the plainclothes chief standing further away gives them an\norder to continue. Now the policewoman with the neatly arranged mats grabs my\nbag and starts to pull a tirade on the anti-terrorist law articles that she\nwill search me. She doesn’t show up and doesn’t have an identification number\non her, contrary to what the law that she claims to be acting requires (as\ntheir own attestation shows here). A body search here on the street seems odd\nand inappropriate to me. I grab my phone and start dialing the number of the\nPolish Consulate. I tell her, \u00ab\u00a0since you are accusing me of terrorism,\nthis is starting to get serious. I don’t understand what you are saying. I am\nentitled to the assistance of an interpreter and a lawyer. So I call my consul\nso that the Polish consulate can assist us. The young woman stammers and\nbacktracked: \u00ab\u00a0No, you are not accused of terrorism, but under the\nTerrorism Act we can check your bag and search you in the street\u00a0\u00bb! <\/p>\n\n\n\n I am thinking. After all\nwe really have nothing in our bags. I decide to let it happen. The woman puts\non gloves and makes a clumsy and unprofessional security palpation. The woman\nwho searches my French colleague does her job so badly that her palpation is\nakin to a sexual assault. I’m worried about my Polish friend who has undergone\n2 muscular checks by cops in 24 hours just after arriving in the country for 2\nhours! The redhead with braids opens my bag and takes out all the objects. She\nlooks at my diary for the 5th and 6th of September, inspects the erotic novel\nin French I have with me as a good luck charm (\u00ab\u00a0what is this ?\u00a0\u00bb\n? \u00ab\u00a0an erotic novel\u00a0\u00bb). If they were expecting posters or leaflets for\nAssange, they are disappointed, there is absolutely nothing in my bag and\nfortunately. That said, professional policemen look for weapons or drugs, and don’t\nspend their shift inspecting personal diaries and books as if they had already\nbecome a political police.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Finally, the red cop puts\nmy things back in my bag, but one of the men, one of the ones who decide, comes\nout and shows my Yellow Vest still in my bag pocket. \u00ab\u00a0What’s that? It\nis ironic. He is trying to get me to admit that I am part of the Yellow Vest\nmovement.<\/strong> In the West, the political police began. I quietly tell him\n\u00ab\u00a0a yellow vest for the bike\u00a0\u00bb. I’m ready to call the consulate if\nthings get out of hand.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Finally, it’s over, the\ncop students have found nothing. They ask us if we want attestations of the\nsearch. Oh yes we do! To have proof that you didn’t find anything! While the\ncops are busy filling out a very short form that doesn’t in any way tell about\nthe psychological brutality of their intervention on us, the plainclothes man\nin decision making pretends to talk about searching our home. There I get angry\nand I say \u00ab\u00a0No.\u00a0\u00bb The man decision-maker, pretends to talk about\nsearching our house. For that you have to present a written order\u00a0\u00bb. He\ndoes not insist. Obviously, all this is bluffing and storytelling intended to\nimpress us. He has no documents incriminating us for any crime. Photographing\nthe Old Bailey is not forbidden and if it was, it must be visible in writing.\nPhotographing a building is not synonymous with preparing a terrorist attack.\nThey go a long way, however, in intimidating the private police of the Lord\nMayor of the City of London.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The policewoman who\ninspects our French colleague ends up telling him, as we itch to ask them the\ncrucial question \u00ab\u00a0but who are you\u00a0\u00bb? \u00ab\u00a0We are not the British\npolice but the City of London police. The City of London is something special.\nYou see the Vatican? We are like the Vatican. Independent from Britain<\/strong>. I\nalso ask the question that targets power to my redheaded inspector. She\nconfirms: the militia of the City of London Corporation is independent of the\nBritish government. We are in hostile territory, but a territory that is not a\nsubject of international law, not a state, but a private company. <\/p>\n\n\n\n They are releasing us. We\nare stunned and return to the apartment. The paper that these\n\u00ab\u00a0policemen\u00a0\u00bb send us does not mention what the result of their search\nis in our bags and on our bodies. It only says \u00ab\u00a0some women photographed\nthe Old Bailey the day before a sensitive trial\u00a0\u00bb. By the next morning the\nOld Bailey will be photographed tens of thousands of times and none of Julian\nAssange’s supporters will be worried. <\/p>\n\n\n\n It was that night that we\nwere not supposed to see what was going on at the Old Bailey. What was so\nspecial about the night before the trial?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n The police paper that we\nretrieve from our mailbox does not give any result of their search, which is\nworrying. On the other hand it does state that although the police are only\nallowed to search if they \u00ab\u00a0have reason to suspect that you have stolen\nsomething or are carrying offensive weapons, drugs or anything that can be used\nfor theft, burglary or to commit criminal damage\u00a0\u00bb. Clearly the object that\nthe City militia consider as a possible weapon is a camera! What a fine example\nof the establishment of a dictatorship to penalize image takers on the eve of a\ntrial for journalism! The dictatorship of private militias on the march in\nEurope, there is no doubt!<\/p>\n\n\n\n Translated with\nwww.DeepL.com\/Translator (free version) [1]<\/a>[1] Joshua Levine \u00ab The secret story of the Blitz \u00bb, Simon and\nShuster, 2015, London<\/p>\n\n\n\n [2]<\/a> https:\/\/www.europarl.europa.eu\/charter\/pdf\/text_fr.pdf<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n [3]<\/a>http:\/\/www.textes.justice.gouv.fr\/textes-fondamentaux-10086\/droits-de-lhomme-et-libertes-fondamentales-10087\/declaration-universelle-des-droits-de-lhomme-de-1948-11038.html<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n [4]<\/a> https:\/\/www.europarl.europa.eu\/charter\/pdf\/text_fr.pdf<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n [5]<\/a> https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Michael_Mainelli<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n https:\/\/www.cityoflondon.gov.uk\/about-us\/about-the-city-of-london-corporation\/lord-mayor\/lord-mayor-biography<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n https:\/\/news.cityoflondon.gov.uk\/city-of-london-corporation-appoints-new-executive-director-of-mansion-house–central-criminal-court\/<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Lord_Mayor_of_London<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n![\"\"](\"http:\/\/monika-karbowska-liberte-pour-julian-assange.ovh\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/09\/Milice-City-of-London-attestation-1-1.png\")
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