Church and State blog: Royal Mail: This year our employment contracts made it out of the UK but going on two weeks later they are currently in transit to or from a PO Box destination in America (WITH UPDATE 15/02/19)

Tuesday, February 12, 2019

Royal Mail: This year our employment contracts made it out of the UK but going on two weeks later they are currently in transit to or from a PO Box destination in America (WITH UPDATE 15/02/19)

Our Church and State website has no less than 48 Nobel Laureates on it; for details, see this blog's sidebar under "Church and State" (updated today).

Mayor of London Sadiq Khan

Article 10 of the European Convention on Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms formulates what is the core of free speech. "Everyone has the right to freedom of expression." In an important interpretation of this article, the European Court of Human Rights in Handyside v. UK (1976) indicated that this "freedom of expression" should be construed as follows. It "is applicable not only to 'information' or 'ideas' that are favourably received, or regarded as inoffensive, or as a matter of indifference, but also to those that offend, shock or disturb the State or any sector of the population." Such are the demands of that pluralism, tolerance and broadmindedness without which there is no "democratic society" (see Cliteur, 2010).

4 January 2019: Information Commissioner: Declan battles the Commissioner's Lead Case Officer over the nature of his data complaint against the Mayor of London-commissioned St Mungo's (WITH UPDATE 31/1/2019) What an experience!

Declan and I are tracking our employment contracts to the United States. Royal Mail: "Our delivery aim to European countries like Germany, France and Spain, is a speedy 3-5 working days and just 5-7 working days for the rest of the world - even to countries on the other side of the globe, like Australia, China or New Zealand." This year our contracts made it out of the UK with Declan's first posting on 2 February, but going on two weeks later, we cannot be sure they are not on the way back to us. United States Postal Service (USPS) Tracking tonight:*

* I had to upload this image to an alternative host for images on 15 May 2020. It is one of my images in MediaFire that is now not appearing on the site.

When you click "Continue tracking":

USPS: "Your package is moving within the USPS network and is on track to be delivered to its final destination. It is currently in transit to the next facility."

Re: Royal Mail

Paragraph 42 of Declan's updated complaint to the United Nations under Article 19 (freedom of expression) of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.

42. The Applicant further complains that the extent of the interference with his and his wife's emails resulted in 2011 in the shelving of the Applicant's petition to the United Nations in support of embryonic stem cell research, which had by then been signed by 29 Nobel laureates as well as hundreds of other distinguished scholars from around the world. In April 2010, an American professor wrote to Minister Featherstone: "I am truly appalled by the unlawful violation of the Heavey's basic right to send and receive email without interference. I would be most grateful for anything you may be able to do by way of taking measures to correct this gross abuse." Despite the Minister's subsequent letter to then Home Secretary Theresa May (see para. 6 above), it is still not uncommon for the Applicant to have to make phone calls to try to get emails through to people. The Applicant has also amassed irrefutable evidence relating to problems with mail delivery (both incoming and outgoing). Most recently, in May 2017, the Applicant complained to Royal Mail about the mishandling of his and his wife's incoming mail following the loss of their employment contracts to the United States. He had repeatedly complained about mail not being put through their letter box before he received £30 in compensation from Royal Mail and an assurance from the Royal Mail Chief Executive's Office that "the actions taken will prevent this happening again".

17 July 2018: Royal Mail: Once again Declan complains to the CEO of Royal Mail about mail not being delivered through our letter box (WITH UPDATE 1/8/2018)

UPDATE 14 February (10.22am): Almost two weeks after posting, it appears this morning that our contracts have been held for collection or redelivery in North Carolina since yesterday afternoon, notwithstanding the clear nature of the receipt Declan holds for the mail item to a PO Box destination (i.e., without requiring a signature). It's not altogether clear which of these two screenshots applies:**

USPS: "Your item has been delivered to your nominated collection point on 13-02-2019 and it's now ready for you to collect."

** I also had to upload this image to an alternative host for images on 15 May 2020. It is another of my images in MediaFire that is now not appearing on the site.

When you click "Continue tracking":

USPS: "Your package will arrive later than expected, but is still on its way. It is currently in transit to the next facility."

UPDATE 15 February (10.40am): This morning USPS Tracking finally reads: "Your item was delivered on 14-02-2019." On a not unrelated front, since December 2018, we have been experiencing difficulties with email the likes of which we have never known before; see my post of 30 December, Our emails now are getting through to no one, not to Nobel laureates or even our closest colleagues. Declan will keep trying to get through to Nobel laureates with the use of his mobile phone (WITH UPDATE 15/2/2019). According to Mailtrack, of the Nobel laureates Declan or I have emailed since 3 January, no less than 64 have not seen their email.

'Let me recommend an important web site churchandstate.org.uk. Operating out of London this well-designed and exciting web site covers church-state, population, climate change and other issues. Check it out.' Edd Doerr, President, Americans for Religious Liberty

http://churchandstate.org.uk/about/

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.

Church and State blog

Tuesday, February 12, 2019

Royal Mail: This year our employment contracts made it out of the UK but going on two weeks later they are currently in transit to or from a PO Box destination in America (WITH UPDATE 15/02/19)

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