— What is the purpose of your visit to United Kingdom?
— I came to take him out!
— Who?
— Comrade Julian Assange
That moment of perplexity, seeing the face of the port police officer was my biggest pleasure.
He looked at my documents again then at me and looked again at my documents (I gave him four documents, two new valid passports, above the Israeli travel document which doesn’t need visa allowing me 180 days stay in the UK and the Turkish passport and the older versions of both passports, knowing that they would later be willing to check everything as well as my previous trips marked in my expired passports). The policeman then managed to sort a new question:
— From where will you take Julian Assange out?
— From the jail, from the Belmarsh Jail.
He didn’t ask how I would do that breaking the Belmarsh Jail for freeing him (this question came later from another officer, during a longer investigation in the detention room). He took notes for about five minutes on a notebook (for some reason they don’t type on computer, they use pen and paper). Then he went out from the cabin asking me to follow him with my passports at his hand. While walking together to the detention room, he sorted another question:
— How will you take Assange out of the Country? He has no passport.
— I will find a way!
In the same hall where the passport rows are located, we came to a partition surrounded by glass with seating. The police told me to sit here and wait. I waited maybe an hour or so. Meanwhile, a strange thing happened: a security guard who was watching the hall outside the glass partition where I was sitting came up to me for a while, asked me how I was doing, and we chatted a little. Then he said “you’re the good guy” and left. Did he say such a thing because rumors spread among the staff that I had come to free Assange? This is how I preferred to interpret it.
Later, two police officers, one of whom was a senior, took me from there to the detention room. Here, fingerprints, facial biometry were taken. All the documents in my bag were carefully examined. And here came the question:
— Do you have any document of special importance in your bag?
– Yes there is. There is the “Travel Order”.
They had in their hands the unlimited border crossing authorization document issued to me by the supra-national institute that I was running with two of my colleagues:
Then started the standard procedures as taking my fingerprints, biometrics, deep searches in my bag, my pockets and detention of my belongings, cell phones etc … my landing on London Gatwick Airport was at 7pm GMT on 1st of July, Friday. I waited several hours in the detention room. Finally a very politely speaking smiley policewoman with LGBTQ+ collar band came to investigate me around the midnight — having seen later in the next day the same rainbow collar on several other officers, I asked why this collar was weared by some police officers and not by all of the police officers. They told me that the LGBTQ+ members could more easily express their complaints to LGBTQ+ member police officers and that was the reason why the police officers who aren’t the members of the LGBTQ+ were not wearing that rainbow bands. I was haunted by deep and dangerous philosophical questions like “why do some police staff not wear BDSM+ signs as well as for better communicating with the BDSM+ community members, why this discrimination to the BDSM+ community… The LGBTQ+ policewoman, after having asked and noted down many details about my life and having re-assured once again my same answer for the purpose of my visit to the UK, she finally asked the critical question:
— Do you have a plan for how to break the jail to free Julian?
I rised the bid:
— I didn’t make any plan, but actually the only way I know is from History: Bastille in Paris was turned down and the prisoners in there were freed. It was in 1789.
She asked me how “Bastille” is spelled and I coded: B-A-S-T-I-double “L” and E. I checked and made sure that she wrote it correctly. She also asked me the year, I made sure that she had noted the year correctly: 1-7-8-9.
of the British State apparatus
on Julian Assange case
It took several hours for them to decide whether to allow me to get in the UK or not to allow me to get in the UK or if not to allow me to get in how to find a way to kick me out with my valid travel document which allows me 180 days stay in the UK, while I was sleeping in the detention room.
Then the LGBTQ+ police lady came back to ask me a single additional question. And this question was fishy:
— Your Israeli document is not a regular passport but a travel document [she indicated the lower status of the travel document as opposed to a regular passport]. How do you know that you don’t need visa to this document?
I replied as if I weren’t fully certain:
— Well, I checked it and found out that I don’t need visa. In the past, the travel document needed visa. But then regulations might have changed and now it doesn’t need visa … as far as I remember…
I didn’t even tend to additionally mention that the no-need-visa status was also checked and confirmed by the check-in desk before getting the boarding pass in Turkey. I sensed they were fabricating an alibi to avoid mentioning the Julian Assange case.
I let them to play their own play, a typical “English play”, but not always a smart one. She went out and after an half an hour she came back. She told me (rolling her eyes to the left) that I was wrong, the travel document needed visa and therefore my entry was declined and that I would be kept at an Immigration Removal Center until my deportation with my flight back to Turkey on Tuesday … and she immediately added (this time looking straight to my eyes): “and also because you say you came to break the prison for freeing Julian Assange and this would be an offense to the public order”.
However this true reason that she somehow frankly expressed in words, is not mentioned on the papers. Papers mentioned the fake reason (the requirement of visa).
Thus, the policewoman didn’t lie but the British government lied. The British government fabricated a lie about its own regulations for avoiding to raise a discussion on whether a traveller coming alone telling that he would break the jail and free Julian Assange was offending the Law and the public order.
Isn’t breaking a jail and freeing a prisoner an offense in the UK? For sure. But what if one says so but has no idea on how to do that? If mentioning the intention is an offense then why not prosecuting me? If not, why afraid of words?
Does the British government believe even more than me that I could really storm the Belmarsh Jail and take Julian Assange out from there?
If it doesn’t believe in it and if still it’s a reason for deportation, why not mentioning my declaration in papers of deportation?
It was on Saturday morning when another team came to bring me to the Immigration Removal Center. One of the officers asked me why I told to the port police so and that if I wouldn’t talk that way I were then be free in London streets. “That would be a lie”, I replied, “and the port police is trained in detecting such lies, right?”.
I told them the truth. And the UK was afraid of this truth.
The new badge issued by the UK
It’s the most honorable badge ever issued in the UK
It’s called,
‘The Assange Badge‘
Everyone visiting the UK can get it,
If they declare their reason of their trip as to storm Belmarsh and free Assange.