Church and State blog: Our documentation is targeted

Sunday, November 26, 2006

Our documentation is targeted

There were no gales or gusts last night, contrary to the Metro newspaper forecast on Friday. We got back to our patch earlier than usual at 9.30pm just in case. I was actually looking forward to witnessing some dramatic weather! As it turned out, last night was no different than any other night, only colder.

I had been sleeping with three layers of clothing covering my legs, the outer one being the jeans the nun in charge of clothes in the Dellow Centre gave me two weeks ago. The jeans are now broken and I can't risk sleeping in them. It means I woke many times during the night with cold legs. Of course, I wouldn't have been so cold if the Whitechapel Mission had given me the jeans I had been asking them for ever since I was landed with what I've got. I have yet to come across a charity shop for second-hand clothes so that I can buy a half-decent pair of jeans for a few pounds. So much for the Whitechapel Mission offering "the largest clothing store in London available to the homeless".

Yesterday we uploaded my blog from an internet café - the library closes at 6.00pm on a Saturday. After that, we went to McDonalds for one coffee between the two of us, as we normally do at night. This time, however, I was told the coffee machine was not working. Before we left, Declan asked if the two people drinking coffee at the table next to us got the last two cups. He was informed they did, and that the machine will be out of action for the rest of night!

This morning things got quite aggressive for us in the Whitechapel Mission. Declan was about to get up for the toilet to wash when a homeless guy in his late twenties demanded that he give him one of our bags on the floor - he only wanted the bag. Declan explained to him as best he could why he wasn't in a position to part with the bag, but the guy wouldn't give up.

We have never had any problems in the mission before so I suspected this was a set up, and that the guy was itching for a fight. I stood up and gave him a plastic bag from my rucksack. He then muttered something and went about his business. He didn't bother us anymore but we were both aware that one of his friends had been stalking our baggage until he left.

We had the same problem in the library Idea Store Whitechapel – guys more interested in our rucksacks than the books on the shelves – until Declan started to tie our bags together with electrical wire. We also tie them at night in the patch, and from now on we are going to do the same in the Whitechapel Mission.

Interestingly, yesterday afternoon there was a fire alert in the library. While Declan was untying our rucksacks, a security guard stood over him insisting that he speed himself up. It turned out to be a false alarm. Five minutes later everybody was back in the building.

It's very clear to us that our rucksacks are being targeted, and no doubt our documentation in particular. Who on earth is interested in the bags of two homeless people that sleep rough at night? It was our documentation that was the first thing that the two policemen asked us for the first time we were interrogated at night. Rough sleeping without any documentation is the surest way to end up in police custody. Tough new anti-terrorist laws have given the police tremendous power.

It also seems clear to us why St Mungo's hasn't given us the referral we need to get into a night shelter, notwithstanding that Declan has spoken to the PA to the CEO of St Mungo's (Charles Fraser) and the Private Secretary to the Leader of Tower Hamlets Council (Cllr Denise Jones), and has emailed the Minister for Housing and Planning (Yvette Cooper MP).

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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Sunday, November 26, 2006

Our documentation is targeted

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