Church and State blog: Barred from the Dellow Centre?

Friday, April 18, 2008

Barred from the Dellow Centre?

We think that this morning could have seen us barred from the Catholic Sisters of Mercy Dellow Centre, the place where we sometimes shower and eat breakfast every weekday – the only food available to me for the entire day (see previous blog). Despite six tables being available in the canteen – the place had just opened – the homeless that on Sunday, while in the Manna Centre, more or less told me I would be found one morning with a knife in my back decides to sit with me. He throws his newspaper on the table with such force it lands on the chair beside me and then proceeds to open it on top of mine; I had to move to another table. And when Declan goes for a shower – he is now washing and shaving in the street as a result of all the hassle from homeless while attempting to wash in the men's washroom, see blog of 10 April “Washing in the street” – a homeless takes offence that he grabbed a chair and begins shouting loudly at him (the word f**k and its variations got repeated quite a few times). Yet no member of staff came in, despite that one of the nuns is normally attending to the two washing machines in the next room. Needless to say, Declan left the washroom as quickly as he could and we left the premises.

We are wary of this morning, understandably I think, because this is exactly how we got ourselves barred from the Methodist Church Whitechapel Mission last June (the place we had been washing since we were forced to become rough sleepers on 3 November 2006): the day we got barred by the minister’s wife due to concerns about our safety, I was assaulted by a homeless woman out of the blue in the canteen. And although Declan wrote by registered post to the minister himself and to the head of the Methodist Church in the UK, Rev Graham Carter, we were never readmitted. (Oh, and we still can’t access our drafts in Google Mail while in the Tower Hamlets Council Idea Store Whitechapel (they are accessible in the internet café), which is unfortunate since all our emailing to try and raise £4,000 for our campaign to support Declan’s petition to the UN is done from there and I now have to go to greater pains to do the work. We are beginning to wonder if the European Court of Human Rights might have invited the Government to set out its observations on the merits and admissibility of our case - Declan received a letter from the Registrar in December turning down his request of 8 September for priority, but informing him that the Court would examine his application, also of 8 September, possibly before the end of January.)

Pope Benedict XVI and bishops at the Basilica of the National
Shrine of the Immaculate Conception in Washington 16 April

On Wednesday, the second day of his six-day US tour, Pope Benedict XVI visited the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception in northeast Washington to speak directly to some 300 bishops and nine cardinals of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops. He began by praising America's religious vitality and quickly turned to warning against the dangers of an ideology that he said threatens to reduce faith to a strictly private matter: secularism. "Is it," he asked, "consistent to profess our beliefs in church on Sunday, and then during the week to promote business practices or medical procedures contrary to those beliefs? Is it consistent for practicing Catholics to ignore or exploit the poor and the marginalized, to promote sexual behavior contrary to Catholic moral teaching, or to adopt positions that contradict the right to life of every human being from conception to natural death?" How such remarks will be taken by the bishops remains to be seen, but some observers saw them as strong encouragement to requiring stronger fidelity to Catholic principles among those citizens who claim to be Catholic, including politicians.

Cardinal Justin Rigali, archbishop of Philadelphia and chairman of the US Conference of Catholic Bishops’ Committee for Pro-Life Activities, doesn't need words of encouragement. On 6 June, the day before the US House of Representatives voted in support of S5, the Stem Cell Research Enhancement Act of 2007, Rigali urged all House members to reject the "misguided and unethical legislation”, adding: "Ethically sound research using non-embryonic stem cells has continued to advance, helping patients with over 70 conditions in clinical trials." He clearly disregarded a letter of 4 April 2007 from the International Society for Stem Cell Research (ISSCR) - the primary international organisation of scientific, ethical, and clinical researchers in the field of stem cell biology – to all Senate members when S5 had been before the Senate. The ISSCR, which strongly supported S5 and believed this was the only bill before the US Congress that would accelerate research dedicated to finding better therapies for patients suffering from a variety of diseases, stated:

Passage of S5 would ensure that scientists in the United States can use Federal grant funds to study the many valuable human embryonic stem cell lines that have been developed since August 9, 2001, the date that President Bush announced his stem cell research policy ... You might hear during the debate about a list of 72 conditions that can supposedly be treated with adult stem cells. We urge you to question the validity of these claims. While adult stem cell therapies are powerful, they are not as wide-ranging as claimed. The range of diseases effectively treated with adult stem cells is still extremely restricted, largely limited to blood disorders and specific cancers. A vote for S5 will ensure that all avenues of stem cell research are adequately explored.

Rigali must not have been happy when S5 was passed by the House on 7 June by a vote of 247-176 (the US Senate had passed the legislation on 11 April 63-34). But his spirits certainly lifted when the legislation was vetoed by President Bush on 20 June: in a statement made the same day he criticized US congressional embryonic stem-cell advocates for "tragically" dismissing the medical advances made using adult stem cells. “I commend President Bush today for vetoing S5, the Stem Cell Research Enhancement Act,” the cardinal said. “This bill would not actually enhance stem cell research, but divert federal funds away from legitimate research toward avenues requiring the destruction of innocent human life.” He added: “The cause of science is not enhanced but diminished when it loses its moral compass.”

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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Friday, April 18, 2008

Barred from the Dellow Centre?

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