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Consortiumnews
Volume 25, Number 332Friday, November 29, 2019
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JOHN PILGER: Visiting Britains Political Prisoner
November 29, 2019
I think Im going out of my mind, Julian Assange told John Pilger at
Belmarsh Prison. No youre not, Pilger responded. Look how you frighten
them, how powerful you are.
By John Pilger
Special to Consortium News
I set out at dawn. Her Majestys Prison Belmarsh is in the flat hinterland
of south east London, a ribbon of walls and wire with no horizon. At what is
called the visitors centre, I surrendered my passport, wallet, credit cards,
medical cards, money, phone, keys, comb, pen, paper.
I need two pairs of glasses. I had to choose which pair stayed behind. I
left my reading glasses. From here on, I couldnt read, just as Julian
couldnt read for the first few weeks of his incarceration. His glasses were
sent to him, but inexplicably took months to arrive.
There are large TV screens in the visitors centre. The TV is always on, it
seems, and the volume turned up. Game shows, commercials for cars and pizzas
and funeral packages, even TED talks, they seem perfect for a prison: like
visual valium.
I joined a queue of sad, anxious people, mostly poor women and children, and
grandmothers. At the first desk, I was fingerprinted, if that is still the
word for biometric testing.
Both hands, press down! I was told. A file on me appeared on the screen.
I could now cross to the main gate, which is set in the walls of the prison.
The last time I was at Belmarsh to see Julian, it was raining hard. My
umbrella wasnt allowed beyond the visitors centre. I had the choice of
getting drenched, or running like hell. Grandmothers have the same choice.
At the second desk, an official behind the wire, said, Whats that?
My watch, I replied guiltily.
Take it back, she said.
So I ran back through the rain, returning just in time to be biometrically
tested again. This was followed by a full body scan and a full body search.
Soles of feet; mouth open.
At each stop, our silent, obedient group shuffled into what is known as a
sealed space, squeezed behind a yellow line. Pity the claustrophobic; one
woman squeezed her eyes shut.
We were then ordered into another holding area, again with iron doors
shutting loudly in front of us and behind us.
Stand behind the yellow line! said a disembodied voice.
Belmarsh prison, where Assange is incarcerated.
Another electronic door slid partly open; we hesitated wisely. It shuddered
and shut and opened again. Another holding area, another desk, another
chorus of, Show your finger!
Then we were in a long room with squares on the floor where we were told to
stand, one at a time. Two men with sniffer dogs arrived and worked us, front
and back.
The dogs sniffed our arses and slobbered on my hand. Then more doors opened,
with a new order to hold out your wrist!
A laser branding was our ticket into a large room, where the prisoners sat
waiting in silence, opposite empty chairs. On the far side of the room was
Julian, wearing a yellow arm band over his prison clothes.
As a remand prisoner he is entitled to wear his own clothes, but when the
thugs dragged him out of the Ecuadorean embassy last April, they prevented
him bringing a small bag of belongings. His clothes would follow, they said,
but like his reading glasses, they were mysteriously lost.
For 22 hours a day, Julian is confined in healthcare. Its not really a
prison hospital, but a place where he can be isolated, medicated and spied
on. They spy on him every 30 minutes: eyes through the door. They would call
this suicide watch.
In the adjoining cells are convicted murderers, and further along is a
mentally ill man who screams through the night. This is my One Flew over
the Cuckoos Nest, he said. Therapy is an occasional game of Monopoly.
His one assured social gathering is the weekly service in the chapel. The
priest, a kind man, has become a friend. The other day, a prisoner was
attacked in the chapel; a fist smashed his head from behind while hymns were
being sung.
When we greet each other, I can feel his ribs. His arm has no muscle. He has
lost perhaps 10 to 15 kilos since April. When I first saw him here in May,
what was most shocking was how much older he looked.
I think Im going out of my mind, he said then.
Assange on way to Belmarsh Prison, April 11, 2019. (Twitter)
Assange on way to Belmarsh Prison, April 11, 2019. (Twitter)
I said to him, No youre not. Look how you frighten them, how powerful you
are. Julians intellect, resilience and wicked sense of humor all unknown
to the low life who defame him are, I believe, protecting him. He is
wounded badly, but he is not going out of his mind.
We chat with his hand over his mouth so as not to be overheard. There are
cameras above us. In the Ecuadorean embassy, we used to chat by writing
notes to each other and shielding them from the cameras above us. Wherever
Big Brother is, he is clearly frightened.
On the walls are happy-clappy slogans exhorting the prisoners to keep on
keeping on and be happy, be hopeful and laugh often.
The only exercise he has is on a small bitumen patch, overlooked by high
walls with more happy-clappy advice to enjoy the blades of grass beneath
your feet. There is no grass.
He is still denied a laptop and software with which to prepare his case
against extradition. He still cannot call his American lawyer, or his family
in Australia.
The incessant pettiness of Belmarsh sticks to you like sweat. If you lean
too close to the prisoner, a guard tells you to sit back. If you take the
lid off your coffee cup, a guard orders you to replace it. You are allowed
to bring in £10 to spend at a small café run by volunteers. Id like
something healthy, said Julian, who devoured a sandwich.
Across the room, a prisoner and a woman visiting him were having a row: what
might be called a domestic. A guard intervened and the prisoner told him
to fuck off.
This was the signal for a posse of guards, mostly large, overweight men and
women eager to pounce on him and hold him to the floor, then frog march him
out. A sense of violent satisfaction hung in the stale air.
Now the guards shouted at the rest of us that it was time to go. With the
women and children and grandmothers, I began the long journey through the
maze of sealed areas and yellow lines and biometric stops to the main gate.
As I left the visitors room, I looked back, as I always do. Julian sat
alone, his fist clenched and held high.
John Pilger is an Australian-British journalist and filmmaker based in
London. Pilgers Web site is: www.johnpilger.com. In 2017, the British
Library announced a John Pilger Archive of all his written and filmed work.
The British Film Institute includes his 1979 film, Year Zero: the Silent
Death of Cambodia, among the 10 most important documentaries of the
20thcentury. Some of his previous contributions to Consortium News can be
found here.