12 kilometers east of the coast of Suffolk, England, there is a special "country", although the territory area is only a quarter larger than the standard basketball court, it not only has a complete national symbol system such as the national anthem, national flag, constitution, currency, etc., but also encountered "war" and "coup", and once fell into the "crisis of annihilation"!
This country is called the Principality of Sealand.
From pirate radio to the pocket country "Sealand"
Around 1942, the British built a large number of maritime armed forts at the mouth of the Thames and The Mersey rivers to capture the enemy situation and protect britain from air and sea attacks.
After the end of World War II, the fort was declared decommissioned and the Royal Navy gradually withdrew. These ownerless offshore buildings were quickly targeted. In the early 1960s, British Major Roy Bates took a fancy to one of the bastions, "Knock John", and planned to build a radio station using the military equipment available above (US Air Force radio).
At that time, British radio stations were almost monopolized by the BBC, because the BBC preferred to broadcast news, newsletters, children's programs and some entertainment activities, coupled with the control of the record company over the British pop music broadcast, so it was very difficult to hear pop music and rock music through radio at that time. To break this, some entrepreneurs and music lovers began to set up private radio stations, and by 1967 there were ten stable pirate radio stations in the UK, which provided music programs to hundreds of thousands of listeners every day.
Unfortunately, bates' radio station is not among them. In October 1966, his station was warned for violating the Wireless Telegraph Act, so Bates renamed the station and continued to broadcast the program, but soon he was fined £100 for illegal broadcasting, which directly led to insufficient funds for the station's operation, and eventually, the station was unfortunately suspended on Christmas night.
For more than a year on the radio, the British government also questioned the legality of Bates's occupation of the military fortress, and the result was beyond doubt, the court ruled that "Knock John" was under British jurisdiction and That Bates had no right to privately occupy the territory.
Bates was in pain as he weighed his options while searching for uninhabited "land" outside of British waters, and finally he found another abandoned fortress, Roughs Tower, which was built in exactly the same style as Knock John and was located just outside the British jurisdiction at the time. So, on the day of the suspension of the radio, Bates decided to make a comeback on the Tower of The Roaring Waves, so that he could not only escape the lawsuit, but also revitalize the radio!
In the summer of 1967, Bates officially occupied the Tower of Nutao with broadcasting equipment, but at the same time, the British also passed a new decree prohibiting unauthorized persons from sending broadcasts through sea equipment, perhaps for this reason, Bates's radio station was never restarted.
Although it is impossible to continue to open radio stations, the "hard-earned" land cannot be wasted. On September 2, while celebrating his wife's birthday, Bates took his relatives and friends to the Tower of Nutao and announced "in public" that the "Principality of Sealand" had been officially established. At the same time, Bates proclaimed himself "Prince of Sealand", his wife was named "Princess Joan", and his son Michael was named "Prince". He also appropriately claimed sovereignty over the Nu Tao Pagoda as interpreted by international law, and identified the waters surrounding the "Principality" with a radius of 12 nautical miles as his territorial waters. At this point, the "smallest country in the world", "Sealand", was born.
War, judgment, and independence
Not long after the founding of the country, Bates received news of the invasion of outsiders - the founder of the pirate radio station "Caroline", Orahili, was preparing to attack the Tower of Nutao with a team of men and horses in an attempt to seize Bates's "territory", and the Bates family did not want to show weakness, fought bravely, and finally successfully resisted the attack of Caroline's forces with petrol bombs and guns.
However, the conflict also alarmed the British government, which sent troops to blow up the abandoned sea fortress near the Nutao Tower overnight in order to prevent anyone from retaking the military fortress. During that time, the Bates family could hear bombers whizzing overhead every day; You can smell gunpowder in the air every day; Every day you can see building debris scattered in the air... As a naval tugboat carrying a demolition team passed through the Principality of Sealand, the crew went up to the deck and waved their arms to attract the attention of the Bates family, while shouting: "The next one is you!" Bates held back his anger and ignored it.
After that, the Principality of Sealand had a period of calm. It was not until one day in 1968 that a workboat sailed into the "sea" of the Principality of Sealand, intending to carry out the work of "maintaining navigation buoys". Bates was furious at the sight of the ships waging into the "territorial waters", so the "prince" and the "prince" fired warnings and threw earthen Molotov cocktails at the "intruders" in an attempt to drive away the invaders. The people of the workboat saw that the situation was not good, quickly turned around and fled, and when they came ashore, they reported the matter to the British government, which did not want to go directly to the sea to arrest people, and after sending a summons to Bates, they decided to stay on the rabbit.
In October 1968, Bates left Sealand with the "prince" and went to England to buy food, who knows, as soon as he landed, he was taken down by the British police who had been waiting for a long time. Britain accused Bates on gun charges and held a trial in Chelmsford Criminal Court in Essex, and after several trials, on November 25, the results were revealed: Bates' father and son were eventually found not guilty, on the grounds that "this is a bullying incident more similar to the time of Sir Francis Drake, but the British courts have no jurisdiction." ”
Originally, according to British law at the time, the British territorial sea was only 3 nautical miles, while the Principality of Sealand was 7 nautical miles from the coastline, so the British gun control law did not apply to "Sealanders".
The verdict made the Principality of Sealand famous, and Bates's self-confidence began to swell, he recorded the day in the "Principality" chronicle, and declared that the law of the United Kingdom had recognized that the territory owned by Bates did not belong to Britain and was a true "Principality". Around the 1970s, Bates formulated a constitution for Sealand and asked for the design of Sealand's flag, national anthem, currency, passports, stamps and other items that represented the image of the country. But apart from the income that money can bring, these things have little real value.
By the way, the currency of the Principality of Sealand is called "Zealand Dollar", and there are three specific types - small silver coins, large silver coins and gold coins, and the currency is printed with the head of "Princess Joan". The "Currency Law" of the "Principality of Sealand" states that 1 Zealand dollar is equal to 1 US dollar, which seems to be good, but the face value of a small Zealand silver coin is 10 Sealand dollars, and the large silver coin has 20 Sea Zealand dollars, so compared to it, the cheapest coins can sell for dozens of yuan. However, in the secondary market, Zealand dollars still have a certain collection value, so there are also some collectors who buy it, which also adds a lot of reserves to the "national treasury" of the principality.
Rebellion, seizure, and negotiation
In 1978, Bates's "Principality Prime Minister" Achenbach took advantage of the fact that the Batess were out, and together with several West German and Dutch citizens, he instigated an "armed coup": they took a helicopter to "forcibly take over" the Tower of Nutao, took the "Prince" Michael who remained in Sealand to the Netherlands, and declared that "Bates wants to betray the Principality of Sealand, it is not worth being a prince, and he should be removed from his post!" ”
When Michael the "Prince" went into exile in the Netherlands, he had neither money nor a passport, and had to work odd jobs along the way, and eventually the prince, prince and princess were reunited in Southend, the Bates family's british settlement. Knowing the ins and outs of the matter, Bates was angry and anxious, and as a soldier, he immediately contacted his old comrades and recruited some mercenaries and pilots to carry out a helicopter landing assault on Achenbach and his party.
When the helicopter reached the Tower of Fury, "Prince" Michael lost his hand and fired a shot, but unexpectedly, this shot frightened Achenbach and his party - they surrendered directly, Bates won a great victory, and the "Sealand regime" was recaptured. After capturing all the "rebels," Bates accused them of being "war criminals" and sent them home.
However, the organizer Achenbach was not so lucky, because he held a Sealand passport, Bates declared him guilty of "treason" and detained him in the Sealand prison (the room at the bottom of the Tower of Nu Tao).
As soon as the matter came out, it quickly shook the West German Foreign Ministry, which made a request to the British government to help contact the Principality of Sealand and release Achenbach as soon as possible, but the British government pulled out the 1968 jurisprudence, stressing that "Sealand is not within the jurisdiction of the United Kingdom, and the United Kingdom has no right to intervene in this matter." To discuss, please contact the Prince of Sealand directly. ”
In desperation, the West German government had to harden its scalp and send diplomats to the Tower of Nutao to request that Bates consult with Bates on the release of Achenbach. After weeks of negotiations, Bates was much calmer and promised to release Achenbach. Later, the Principality of Sealand took this opportunity to declare that the visit of German diplomats to Sealand was a German recognition of the Principality of Sealand.
However, neither the British nor the German government officially recognized the sovereignty of the Principality of Sealand.
Sealand Haven
In 1999, a man named Sean sent an email to the "Sealand Royal Family" inviting Sealand to participate in a "data haven" project and hoping to borrow Sealand's "land" to build a server.
Soon, Bates responded: it was possible to negotiate, but wanted to know more details about the project. Sean felt that there was a drama and immediately responded: "We have long admired your achievements and learned about the glorious history of your radio station, and our project is similar to your radio station' purpose, that is, to make pirated Internet, through which people can do whatever they want, and will not be controlled by the government." If you are interested, we can move the agenda forward as soon as possible. ”
In the fall of 1999, Sean's team of four and the Bates family formally negotiated, Shaun provided a down payment of $250,000 for the lease of Sealand land and server construction, while the Bates family only needed to provide security for the Sealand Principality. The deliberations were proceeding so fast that the following spring, their team had completed their first round of funding, amounting to more than a million dollars.
On August 22, 2000, "Haven Limited" was officially registered, and its chief operating officer was Betts, the "Prince" of Sealand. The news immediately attracted the attention of more than 200 media outlets around the world, and in an interview, the head of Safe Haven said: "Our servers will be operational by the end of this year, and everything except child pornography, spam and malicious hacking is acceptable." In addition, the Principality of Sealand is not a member of the WTO and the World Intellectual Property Organization and is not governed by international copyright law, so the data stored on our servers may not be subject to copyright and intellectual property regulations! ”
After the safe haven company began to operate, it really became a "safe haven" for gamblers and tax evaders, many online gambling companies traded through the servers of the Principality of Sealand, and Interpol also tried to track down the Principality of Sealand many times, but refused on the grounds of "not accepting summonses from any state and the police". Perhaps because of various interference and operational problems, Safe Haven eventually closed down in 2008.
In 2013, Friedman, a member of Sean's team, decided to resume operations in safe haven, but servers were no longer located in Sealand, but in the United States and the European Union. Some important encryption keys and cold data are stored in Sealand.
By the way, for the safe haven, the British government actually knows, after all, the cable must go in the direction of the United Kingdom, but they have been turning a blind eye to Sealand, on the surface, the United Kingdom has no statement, but in the dark, the government has passed legal provisions to strengthen supervision of data in and out of Sealand. But to this day, nothing has happened.
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