Church and State blog: A4E: Letter to the Irish Minister for Justice, Equality & Law Reform

Thursday, September 30, 2010

A4E: Letter to the Irish Minister for Justice, Equality & Law Reform

As I said in the blog of 22 September A4E: Letter to City of London Police Commissioner Michael Bowron, I am more undocumented than an illegal immigrant following the robbery in June 2008 of all our money and documents in the Sisters of Mercy's Dellow Day Centre for the homeless - for more than 2 1/2 years we were forced to sleep rough on the streets of London by the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) because Declan did not "sign on" TWO DAYS BEFORE he was actually due to do so on 29 September 2006 (see blog of 21 June Department for Work and Pensions double breaches the Data Protection Act: Letter to the Information Commissioner). It has taken Broadway Homelessness and Support more than a year to retrieve Declan's birth certificate from Ireland (see blog of 10 September Broadway Homelessness and Support), and they have yet to agree to assist me with requesting my Irish Citizenship Certificate so that I can be reissued an Irish passport (see blog of 13 September Broadway will help me become a Spanish citizen!). This afternoon I even received an email from the Private Secretary to Irish Minister Dermot Ahern. Declan will send this thread to him by registered post tomorrow (the letter from the Papal Nuncio regarding the Sisters of Mercy is published here):

(In the video contained in the blog of 3 September Declan's case against A4E on YouTube, I explain that we came to England from Dublin in 2003 and for two years attempted to start a network of those abused by church with our own money and how the opposition we encountered was so great that we had no choice but to go on benefits in 2005. And if you want to know what kind of opposition we encountered before we were forced to the streets for more than 2 1/2 years, the blog of 11 September City of London Police in the spotlight contains some photos of our flooded kitchen and bathroom in August 2004!)

This afternoon I ran into my A4E (Action for Employment) employment officer Greg Janiszek in a major way - A4E is a private sector company that has £300 million of Government training contracts and controls 25% of the long-term unemployment budget for the DWP. Janiszek had the cheek to tell me that the reason why I have not gained meaningful employment is because I am sending all my CVs and application forms to non-profits through the post! He is of course well aware that Declan has written to our MP Lynne Featherstone, now a minister in the Home Office, asking her to be of assistance "in correcting the unlawful violation of our basic right to send and receive email without interference" (see blog of 21 April Interception of communications: Declan writes to our MP). This is her most recent letter to Declan, which I have shown Janiszek on more than one occasion (click to enlarge):

Janiszek is also aware that Declan's petition to the UN regarding stem cell research has been shelved several times because almost no scientist was getting his email in their Inbox (see here); that our blog and the NAC website has been hacked and vandalised several times (see here and here); and that abuse has been hurled at a NAC Honorary Associate via Skype (see here). I am not sure if I have told him that in 2008 over 300 draft documents were erased from our Gmail account (see here). But certainly I have informed him, and more than once, that the original NAC website was suspended in March 2008 due to a Spamcop report that was drawn up the day after the Home Office denied that a warrant had been issued to intercept Declan's communications (see here).

No employer or agent has ever got back to either of us to tell us we are living in the twentieth century! We are doing our very best to find employment despite all the obstacles. Between two training courses (Declan actually attends a third training course on Saturdays - of no interest to A4E because it is in his "free time") and travelling to and from an allocated A4E branch that is not even in our own borough (our local A4E branch happens to be less than a ten-minute walk away from our flat), we do not have the time for a window-dressing exercise through Gmail. We have to get through to employers, and the only way to do that is to send CVs and application forms through the post, notwithstanding the time, trouble and expense.

My Irish Citizenship Certificate aside (Janiszek has asked me not to send him any more emails regarding this matter), why doesn't this employment officer facilitate my efforts by getting me the work experience I need - work experience they are obliged to provide me with and which I am repeatedly asking him for? Neither has Janiszek lifted one finger to help me get onto a training course. A4E, a private company, is the largest provider of welfare to work programmes on behalf of the DWP. Who is in breach of contract here?

More like a cheek and a half.

Church and State

MAYOR OF LONDON RSI PROPERTY
DAY 406 IN A WEEKLY PERIODIC TENANCY
SUBJECT TO A SECTION 21 NOTICE

(SEE PARA. 3 BELOW)

1. Our 308 Honorary Associates include 20 Nobel Prize laureates. Declan and I are engaged in a project that deals with the publication of issues significant to social policy in a number of key areas, e.g., climate change, population, futurism, atheism, and free speech. Established as Network for Church Monitoring, a non-profit company limited by guarantee, our main publication, found at the website, Church and State, calls attention to subjects, not the least which have been critical of the interaction between religious and secular institutions. We have been the target of numerous threats and actions, e.g., the former resulting in threats to Declan's life, and the latter, which have led to vandalism. The various incidents are on record with the police and other official agencies.

2. There are no less than 63 Nobel Prize laureates on the Church and State website from 20 Honorary Associates, eight articles, nine book excerpts and 33 petition signatories. (For example, one Nobel laureate signed our Nobel petition in support of human embryonic stem cell research and gave us permission to excerpt from one of his books.) Our list of associates also includes 18 US National Medal laureates, and six Turing Award laureates (the equivalent of the Nobel Prize in computer science). We have published one article and excerpted from the books of seven members of the British House of Lords. And there are 31 knighted professors on the site from 13 Honorary Associates, one book excerpt and 21 petition signatories. These figures are despite the never-ending assault on our email (this link reveals the targeting of our emails to, among others, a close colleague in Washington, DC as well as space advocates and Nobel laureates).

3. This is Day 406 for us living under the threat to life of a 'no fault' eviction by Peabody Trust.[1] We live in a Mayor of London's Rough Sleepers Initiative (RSI) property. Peabody's appalling new terms of tenancy have forced us into an unstable weekly periodic tenancy that poses a threat to Declan's life and inhibits our ability to exercise our rights. Declan accumulated quite a history with the Housing Ombudsman Service before he received the Ombudsman's decision not to investigate a referral from Lyn Brown MP on jurisdictional grounds. The Ombudsman was asked to consider whether or not our tenancy has been renewed like for like; and whether, if not, it should be in light of the landlord having accused us of not signing a like-for-like agreement. The Equality and Human Rights Commission will not accept a referral of discrimination from Ms Brown, the Commission's helpline (EASS) having grossly distorted the complaint against Peabody. We no longer have pro se access to the courts (see next paragraph).

4. This eviction matter came before District Judge Ruth Fine at the Central London County Court on 30 June 2020, when both counsel for St Mungo's (the charity in effective control of our tenancy) and Declan presented their positions. Declan lost the case and was ordered to pay £1,850 in costs. A publishing colleague in America cleared these costs within 24 hours of my blog post about this hearing for strike out on a related issue that was the essence of the claim, i.e., that St Mungo's would take a phone call to confirm that we are clients of the Mayor of London's RSI programme. Within a week of the hearing, St Mungo's had agreed to take this phone call for us both, the Court having ruled that they were not obliged to do so despite our circumstances. This time we escaped bankruptcy (counsel for St Mungo's asked for £3,407.50 in costs), but consider that to seek pro se access to justice in the courts has become far too dangerous for us. Declan currently has before the Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman the decision of the Information Commissioner that allows St Mungo's to continue processing coercive support plans without our knowledge or consent and that also poses a threat to his life.

5. When it comes to traffic, we have had 10.7 million hits in the past three years on Facebook; however, I left the platform on 13 March 2021 for one year rather than risk being banned for life. It is indisputable that with any sort of level playing field Church and State would have far exceeded 2.5 million hits last year. In addition to a large variety of blocks without explanation, Facebook had so severely restricted our Page's distribution by October 2020 that it was almost as good as an unpublished page.[2] Currently, we are up to their 85th block since 1 December 2015, and as usual without an explanation. This block records as one half of their 3rd double block in the first five weeks of this year that lasted 60 days. Our traffic has also been curtailed by over 2.5K blocks on access to Church and State since 26 July 2016, including 29 full distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks since 17 May 2019 that have lasted for as long as 54 hours at a time.[3] About 70% of our hits are from Americans.

"This is precisely the hard hitting kind of response needed to clarify the unfair way Facebook is treating your highly reputable site." Don Collins, Founder, International Services Assistance Fund, Washington DC

Last updated: 26/06/21

_________________________

[1] Once a fixed term has elapsed, the landlord has the option to seek eviction even if the tenant has upheld their obligations in full (though of course the landlord must still apply for and obtain a county court order).

[2] 17/10/20: We have permission to publish this ISAF letter of 30 September to Facebook COO Sheryl Samberg. Facebook has so severely restricted our Page's distribution since 4 September that it's almost as good as an unpublished page

[3] Since October 2019, we have been defining a full DDoS attack as having such a high volume of up to 4-minute blocks on access to Church and State that we don't bother recording them all.

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Thursday, September 30, 2010

A4E: Letter to the Irish Minister for Justice, Equality & Law Reform

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