Church and State blog: St Mungo's: Now I can't even get a satisfactory reference from this Mayor of London-commissioned charity after three years of voluntary work. Declan is updating his threat-to-life complaint to the United Nations last year

Thursday, June 20, 2019

St Mungo's: Now I can't even get a satisfactory reference from this Mayor of London-commissioned charity after three years of voluntary work. Declan is updating his threat-to-life complaint to the United Nations last year

From paragraph 2 below:

"This obscene disregard for your rights seems to continue unresolved!"
-Don Collins, President of ISAF, an NGO dedicated to helping women

Our Church and State website has no less than 57 Nobel Laureates on it; for details, see this blog's sidebar under "Church and State" (updated today).

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).

19 June 2019

Dear Sofia,

Thank you for your email. [Name withheld] might want you to complete the attached volunteer reference form. You forgot to reply to their question about my "honesty, reliability and temperament".

Best regards,

Maria [Lola] Heavey

19 June (previous post): Greater London Authority: The Mayor of London's Rough Sleeping Team at City Hall breach Declan's rights by contacting St Mungo's on his behalf without his authority or consent (WITH UPDATE 20/6/2019)

Mayor of London Sadiq Khan

Declan and I are housed in a flat that is part of the Mayor of London's Rough Sleepers Initiative. Alongside our tenancy is access to the Mayor's Tenancy Sustainment Team (TST) at St Mungo's. It has been acknowledged by the Greater London Authority in court papers that both Declan and I can live independently – we do not have addictions or mental illness or behavioural issues. Our needs are solely related to the harassment, discrimination and intimidation we routinely face. Last year St Mungo's made the international press for all the wrong reasons. They are accused of helping to get rough sleepers arrested and deported. When the story came through my Russia Today (RT) news feed, it left Declan gob smacked. He subsequently spoke with Diane Taylor, the journalist covering the story for the Guardian.

EU freedom for rough sleepers infringed - shock horror. https://t.co/RuJKrSEiTm
— Andrew Martin (@devonprof) May 14, 2018

We have never been able to get the basic support we need from St Mungo's, but we have been battling them from pillar to post for over a year, culminating in a reference for me yesterday that raises more questions than it answers. On 5 June I posted St Mungo's: Declan's email to CEO Howard Sinclair of this Mayor of London-commissioned charity further to pre-action letter dated 26 April 2019 (WITH UPDATE 20/6/2019). The update to the post raises serious questions relating to transparency and trust when it comes to this charity, not me. It also contains a quote from Don Collins, President of the Washington DC-based International Services Assistance Fund, who observed last week that "This obscene disregard for your rights seems to continue unresolved!" Declan will put the record straight in his forthcoming updated complaint to the United Nations under Article 19 (freedom of expression) of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. This cover letter will more likely be dated some day next month:

Her Excellency Michelle Bachelet Jeria
High Commissioner for Human Rights
Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights
Palais Wilson
52 rue des Pâquis
CH-1201 Geneva
Switzerland

June 2019

Your Excellency,

I write as the Managing Director of the non-profit Network for Church Monitoring to ask you to urge the United Kingdom to accede to the First Optional Protocol to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), the multilateral treaty that commits its parties to respect the civil and political rights of individuals, including the right to freedom of expression enshrined in Article 19 ICCPR and construed by the European Court of Human Rights in Handyside v. United Kingdom (1976).

The First Optional Protocol sets out a system by which the UN's Human Rights Committee can receive and consider complaints from individuals who allege a violation of the ICCPR. But since the UK Government has not ratified the First Optional Protocol, individuals living in the UK are not currently permitted to submit written communications to the Committee. Indeed, the UK is the only European Union member state (prior to its possible exit from the EU in October 2019) and one of only three members of the Council of Europe not to have acceded to the Protocol.

My wife and I complain of an orchestrated campaign of harassment and intimidation by the UK's Security Service (MI5) and/or Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ) over a period dating back to 2003. We have exhausted all available domestic remedies and my claim has been dismissed by the European Court of Human Rights on the ground that it "did not disclose any appearance of a violation of the rights and freedoms set out in the Convention or its Protocols". Please see my Communication enclosed herewith. Paragraphs 49-55 outline why the Vatican and the hierarchy of the Catholic Church should be monitored.

We note the UK Government's response in the sixth periodic report under the ICCPR that it does not see "a compelling need to accept individual petition to the UN" and that "the practical value to the individual citizen is unclear". We believe that the UK Government should be urged to reconsider accession to the First Optional Protocol in order to guarantee effective and consistent protection of the full range of ICCPR rights to those living within its borders.

Yours sincerely,

Declan Heavey
Managing Director
Network for Church Monitoring

From My Picks:

22 April: Email interception: Immediately after this complaint to our local MP a test email to two close colleagues has been blocked. A 2010 parliamentary letter to now Prime Minister Theresa May revealed in this post (WITH UPDATE 19/6/2019)

UK Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ)

'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

Thursday, June 20, 2019

St Mungo's: Now I can't even get a satisfactory reference from this Mayor of London-commissioned charity after three years of voluntary work. Declan is updating his threat-to-life complaint to the United Nations last year

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