Still blocked by Facebook

I just wanted to update my Facebook situation which basically is exactly the same as yesterday (see previous blog), getting a warning and then I am blocked from adding folks from the people you know tool – this time I was stopped after 16. Actually, a FB group has now been formed "Support Lola Heavey - Stop Facebook Banning Her", which can be accessed here. The point of the matter is that I do value my FB account a great deal. For example, as a result of comments that FB friends have left on my wall regarding articles and videos I have posted, the NAC website now includes a new section in “What we do” called “Oppose fundamentalism and extremism” for all three of the Abrahamic religions (Judaism, Christianity, and Muhammadanism (Islam)) and Hinduism. My FB friends have a tremendous amount of talent (and humour) and Declan and I would very much like to bring what we can of it to NAC. I don’t think I should be penalised for this! A quotation from Carl Sagan, which a FB friend just posted on his wall, says it all:

Fundamental changes in society are sometimes labeled impractical or contrary to human nature: as if nuclear war were practical or as if there were only one human nature. But fundamental changes can clearly be made. We are surrounded by them. In the last two centuries abject slavery, which was with us for thousands of years, has almost entirely been eliminated in a stirring world wide revolution.

Anyway, this morning was my first time back begging in the local train station (see previous blog). It is actually illegal in the UK to ask people for some change, so as soon as I have a couple of pounds I am gone: we don’t spend any money, except on a few toiletries and the occasional £3 for seven hours in the local internet café (I only get three hours on my membership card in the local library). Of course, I am quite familiar with this begging thing (see, for example, blog of 5 April 2008 “Declan narrowly escapes being assaulted”).

Declan has received an email from Limehouse Police Violent Crime Unit suggesting that he calls police immediately when he next makes sight of the homeless guy against whom he has three crime references numbers so that he can be arrested (see blog of 24 February Declan threatened with assault); the Dellow Day Centre of the Catholic Sisters of Mercy Providence Row Charity is not divulging the identity of this guy to police even though they do know his details. Declan has been washing in the street since 10 April of last year due to harassment and intimidation by other homeless, particularly in the Dellow (see blog of 8 February “Letter to Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O'Connor”), and it sure looks as if he won’t be seeing the Dellow’s washroom for a while yet. For the record, this is the email Declan received from Detective Constable Paul De-Krestser:

Re: Crime Reference Number 4204029/09

Dear Sir,

I am sending this letter by way of e-mail since I do not have a permanent residence to write to you. I hope that you are well.

With regard to your complaint of being assaulted, the circumstances of it make it very hard for the police to progress it effectively.

Firstly, even though you have had three unfortunate events involving the same suspect you do not know the identity of this suspect. Without knowing whom the suspect is it becomes impossible to arrest him.

Secondly, The Dellow Centre due to their professional considerations is not divulging the identity of the suspect to police even though they do know his details. The police service is not in a position to demand that the Day centre release the details of the suspect to us. Many of these organisations have their own confidentiality policies.

Thirdly, there are no witnesses to this event.

The only way, we can progress this investigation is if you can find out the name of the suspect and thereby identify who he is.

What I can suggest to you is that you call police immediately when you next make sight of the suspect so that he can be arrested and this matter can be investigated. You must maintain your safety.

Until such time this crime report will have to be closed.

Please reply to me with your thoughts.

Yours sincerely,

Paul De-Krestser DC

Facebook has issued me another warning

Facebook has just issued me with another warning. And in the same manner as on 21 March (see previous blog “Facebook no longer permits me to add friends”): as I was adding like-minded people - other atheists, humanists, etc - as FB friends. In fact, I had only done four or five when the warning popped up. I now have 506 friends and many have well over 1,000 of their own. Indeed, it would appear that there is no limit to the number of FB friends you can have; PZ Myers, for example, a favourite of mine, has 4,994 friends.

Just in case I am taken down this evening (as the warning threatens I will be), I have an up-to-the-minute snag of my wall, FB friends, including the contact information for the US and British journalists and bloggers who have befriended me, and all emails I have sent and received through my FB account. I find it quite outrageous that FB can seemly terminate accounts at will, without explanation or clarification, especially since I have worked quite hard, putting articles and videos on my wall which may be of interest to the community; they frequently get good response too, particularly of late. But it sure looks like my FB account is heading the same direction as the original NAC website and Declan’s petition to the UN in support of therapeutic cloning, which has been signed by 24 Nobel Laureates (see “About us”).

Changing the subject, yesterday Declan was ticketed by a police officer for sitting in the local train station, which the officer deemed “loitering” (a first), and tomorrow I am back begging in the same station, subject to arrest as begging is illegal in the UK (the last time I had to ask people for some change was last Easter). Should I be arrested tomorrow morning, I will insist that the following email letter from Declan yesterday evening to the Chair of The Big Issue Foundation Steven Round, together with its attachments, be used in my defense by the solicitor appointed to me - and on appeal, if necessary (The Big Issue is a magazine sold by homeless people on registered pitches throughout the UK; we have been selling it since December 2006):

Subject: The Big Issue

Dear Mr. Round,

Previous correspondence refers. In the light of the seriousness of the situation my wife finds herself in, I wish to bring to your attention as chair of The Big Issue Foundation my email and attachment of even date to The Big Issue Company (please see attachments).

Should my wife in fact be arrested for begging in the local train station this week, and assuming you have no objection, she will present this email and attachments to you to the solicitor appointed to her case.

I can confirm that this evening I received an email of reply on behalf of The Big Issue Company from Outreach and Distribution Manager for London, Mr. Paul Joseph, stating:

Provided you move on when the registered vendor arrives you are entitled to work the pitch. Can you confirm that it is vendor 1739 who you have spoken to and we can speak to him.

I replied: "I can so confirm, the same vendor 1739 against whom I lodged a formal complaint with The Big Issue Company on 24 July 2008 for harassment and intimidation on my (then) pitch at McDonald's on Liverpool Street"; I received Mr. Joseph's "Out of Office AutoReply".

In the event of error in transmission, please note that the order of attachments is as follows:

The-Big-Issue 1.4.doc 27kb
The-Big-Issue-Foundation 23.2.htm 12kb

Please would you acknowledge receipt.

Yours sincerely,
Declan Heavey

For the record, this is the first attachment, Declan’s email to Outreach and Distribution Manager for London Paul Joseph yesterday (the second attachment, Declan’s letter of complaint to Round on 23 February, is presented here):

Subject: The Big Issue

Dear Mr. Paul Joseph,

I re-transmit for your attention as the Big Issue outreach and distribution manager for London my email of 31 March regarding The Big Issue, presented below, to which I received your "Out of Office AutoReply" yesterday afternoon.

I attach copy of my most recent email of 23 February to the Chair of The Big Issue Foundation, Mr Steven Round, on the subject of, inter alia, the making available by The Big Issue of my pitch at McDonald's on Liverpool Street to other vendors to register as from 18 November 2008.

I am hoping that my wife (badge no. 1170) will not have to resort to begging in the local train station this coming Friday morning.

Please would you acknowledge receipt.

Best regards,
Declan Heavey
Big Issue badge no. 1163

------------------------------

Subject: The Big Issue

Dear Mr Paul Joseph,

I would be much obliged to you if you could please have the vendor to whom McDonald's on Liverpool Street has been allocated informed that when he is not on this pitch I am fully entitled to be on it.

It has got to the stage now that to buy two Big Issues my wife and I have to scavenge in bins at night and go hungry for days on end.

Surely this vendor's repeated insistence that I go get my own pitch (most recently this lunch time) is unnecessary and discourteous, if not deemed by the Big Issue Company to be in flagrant breach of codes of conduct?

Best regards,
Declan Heavey
Big Issue badge no. 1163