Suite 101254 Pentonville Road

London N1 9JYEngland

16 October 2013Dr Navanethem PillayUnited Nations High Commissioner for Human RightsOffice of the United Nations High Commissionerfor Human Rights (OHCHR)Palais des NationsCH-1211 Geneva 10Switzerland

Dear High Commissioner Pillay

I write as the director of Network for Church Monitoring (N4CM) to ask you to urge theUnited Kingdom to accede to the first Optional Protocol to the International Covenant onCivil and Political Rights (ICCPR), the multilateral treaty that commits its parties to respectthe civil and political rights of individuals, including the right to freedom of speech.

The first Optional Protocol sets out a system by which the UN’s Human Rights Committeecan receive and consider complaints from individuals who allege a violation of the ICCPR.But since the UK Government has not ratified the Optional Protocol, individuals living in theUK are not currently permitted to submit written communications to the Committee. Indeed,the UK is the only European Union member state and one of only three members of theCouncil of Europe not to have acceded to the Protocol.

My wife and I complain of an orchestrated campaign of harassment and intimidation by theSecurity Service (MI5) and/or Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ) over aperiod dating back to September 2003, after having exhausted all available domesticremedies and after having my application declared inadmissible by the European Court ofHuman Rights. Please see my Communication enclosed herewith; paragraphs 43-49 outlinewhy 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 itdoes not see “a compelling need to accept individual petition to the UN”, in particular itsclaim that “the practical value to the individual citizen is unclear”. However, we believe thatthe Government should be urged to reconsider, as a priority, accession to the first OptionalProtocol in order to guarantee effective and consistent protection of the full range of ICCPRrights.

Yours sincerely

Declan HeaveyDirectorNetwork for Church Monitoring

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DECLAN HEAVEY V. THE UNITED KINGDOM

COMMUNICATION SUBMITTED FOR CONSIDERATION UNDERTHE FIRST OPTIONAL PROTOCOL TO THE

INTERNATIONAL COVENANT ON CIVIL AND POLITICAL RIGHTS

Before:The United Nations Human Rights Committeec/o Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights1211 Geneva 10, SwitzerlandFax: + 41 229179022

Submitted by:Declan HeaveySuite 101, 254 Pentonville RoadLondon N1 9JYUnited KingdomMobile: +44 (0) 7880 437 681Email: dheavey@gmail.com

Date: 16 October 2013

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I. APPLICANT/STATE CONCERNED

Α . Information Concerning the Applicant of the Communication

1. The applicant in this Communication is Declan Heavey, a citizen of the Republic ofIreland who lives in the city of London in the United Kingdom. He was born on 4 September1960 and is a former teacher of physical education. His wife, a naturalized Irish citizen bornin Madrid in Spain (and a former social psychologist), lives with the applicant in London.They have been living in the United Kingdom since 2003 and before that lived in Dublin inthe Republic of Ireland for ten years. They have no children. The applicant is the director ofthe Network for Church Monitoring (N4CM), registered in England and Wales as a non-profitcompany limited by guarantee in January 2011.

B.State Party Concerned

2. The State Party to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (theCovenant or ICCPR) against which this Communication is directed is the United Kingdom.

3. The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland formally acceded to theICCPR on 20 May 1976, but has yet to accede to the first Optional Protocol. Please see coverletter to the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights dated 16 October 2013 above.

II. ARTICLES VIOLATED/EXHAUSTION OF DOMESTIC REMEDIES/OTHERINTERNATIONAL PROCEDURES

A. Articles of the ICCPR Violated

4. This case arises in relation to the harassment, directed surveillance and interception ofcommunications by the Security Service (MI5) and/or Government CommunicationsHeadquarters (GCHQ) over a period dating back to September 2003. It is submitted that thiscase involves the violation of Article 19 of the Covenant, relating to the applicant’s right tofreedom of expression, and in particular his right to impart information on the Internet.

B. Exhaustion of Domestic Remedies

5. Since 2003, the applicant has sought repeatedly to put a stop to the harassment in itsvarious forms without success. On 16 June 2010, the applicant’s parliamentary representative,then Home Office Minister Lynne Featherstone, wrote to Home Secretary Theresa Maylaying out the applicant’s concerns regarding the interception of his and his wife’s emails (seeparagraphs 21, 34 and 35 below). In a letter dated 12 November 2010, Security MinisterBaroness Pauline Neville-Jones recommended the Investigatory Powers Tribunal (IPT) toinvestigate. The IPT is the only Tribunal to whom complaints about the Intelligence Servicescan be directed, and under section 67(8) of the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000,there is no appeal from a decision of the IPT. The applicant therefore exhausted all possibledomestic remedies by bringing a claim before the IPT.

6. The applicant lodged his claim with the IPT on 10 August 2011 in respect of ongoinginterception by MI5 and/or GCHQ over a period dating back to September 2003. Theapplicant also alleged harassment, directed surveillance, the disabling of Internet access at

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home and in public libraries, interference with a website, blog and emails and interception ofprivileged communications by one or both agencies.

7. The applicant informed the IPT that he and his wife were living in the same ‘safehouse’ MI5 whistleblower David Shayler lived in for a couple of years (until 2007), wherethey were being repeatedly threatened and harassed by their live-in landlady, human rightsactivist Belinda McKenzie (see paragraphs 22-24 below). According to BBC Panorama, MrShayler “caused the biggest crisis of official secrecy since the spy catcher affair” – he wasjailed for seven weeks in 2002 for breaking the Official Secrets Act. It is unfortunate that MrShayler declared that he was the Messiah in 2007, became a squatter, and was subsequentlyridiculed in the press and media for changing his name to Delores Kane. A New Statesmanarticle published in September 2006 featuring Mr Shayler and Ms McKenzie gives noindication that Mr Shayler believed he was the Messiah at that time; whilst a Daily Mailinterview with Mr Shayler explicitly shows he believed himself to be Jesus by June 2007 (seeAnnex 1, MI5/GCHQ: MI5 whistleblower David Shayler, p. 17). He has never regained hisnormal self.

8. Within two weeks of the applicant’s complaint to the IPT, Facebook had disabled hiswife’s account, their web host SiteGround had to twice block their IP address due to a largenumber of simultaneous connections towards their server, Ms McKenzie had served themwith a backdated notice to vacate their flat, and Haringey Council had left the applicant withhis first shortfall in rent to pay (see paragraph 23(1) below). Nonetheless, the Tribunaldismissed the claim within three weeks, on 1 September 2011, stating (see Annex 2,MI5/GCHQ: Investigatory Powers Tribunal Decision, p. 18):

The Investigatory Powers Tribunal has carefully considered your complaint and Human Rights Actclaim, and has concluded that it is obviously unsustainable, and thus falls within the provisions ofRule 13(3)(a) of the Investigatory Powers Tribunal Rules 2000, such that, pursuant to s67(4) of theRegulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000, the Tribunal has resolved to dismiss the claim.

9. The applicant remains aggrieved by the decision of the IPT to dismiss his claimwithout calling upon information or evidence in addition to that provided by him, which hehad informed the Tribunal was “wide-ranging”, including, but not limited to, paperscorrespondence, memoranda, contracts, agreements, and other records from a blog/diarycalled “Network for Church Monitoring (N4CM) Blog”. (The N4CM blog, which has beenvandalised on several occasions, even carries a screenshot of a Skype chat exposing thehomophobic abuse of a distinguished American scholar by an anonymous perpetrator.) It wasalso made known to the Tribunal that the applicant could adduce evidence other than his own.For example, third parties could have confirmed that phone calls from the applicant had beencut off in mid-sentence and emails sabotaged (see paragraphs 21, 34 and 35 below).

10. According to the UK human rights group Justice, the IPT has only ever upheld 10complaints out of 1,100 considered over the past decade. They observe that “[e]ither publicbodies get their surveillance decisions miraculously right in 99.1% of cases, or the IPT issimply inadequate as a mechanism for investigating claims of abuse”. Liberty, one of theUK’s leading civil liberties and human rights organisations, asks: “How can the public haveany confidence in a process which is held in secret, gives little or no reasons for its decisionsand whose judgment cannot be brought into question in any court of law?”

11. In this regard, it is important to underscore that the discriminatory surveillancesuffered by the applicant and his wife is not an isolated event. Rather, it is emblematic of alarger pattern of surveillance and discriminatory practices by law enforcement officials in theUK that has been well-documented by international and domestic human rights bodies. In

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May 2012, Liberty expressed concern that “state sanctioned surveillance against specificindividuals takes place on a massive scale”. In July 2006, Norman Baker MP accused theBritish Government of “hoarding information about people who pose no danger to thiscountry”, after it emerged that MI5 was holding secret files on 272,000 individuals –equivalent to one in 160 adults. British police and government agencies are requestingpersonal information about Facebook users more than almost anywhere else in the world(behind the USA and India), according to Facebook. Its first Global Government RequestsReport reveals British authorities made 1,975 requests for information relating to 2,337 usersin the six months to 30 June 2013.

C. Other International Procedures

12. The applicant complained to the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) on 19October 2011. He invoked Articles 8 (right to respect for private and family life andcorrespondence) and 13 (right to effective remedy) of the European Convention on HumanRights. He submitted that the interference with his rights under Article 8 was not prescribedby the law, that it did not pursue any of the legitimate aims in Article 8(2), and that theinterference was not necessary in a democratic society. He also submitted that there was noeffective remedy available in respect of the interference, in violation of Article 13.

13. The ECHR, sitting in a single-judge formation (VA De Gaetano assisted by arapporteur), dismissed the claim within 14 weeks, on 24 January 2012, stating (see Annex 3,MI5/GCHQ: European Court of Human Rights Decision, p. 19):

In the light of all the material in its possession, and in so far as the matters complained of werewithin its competence, the Court found that they did not disclose any appearance of a violation ofthe rights and freedoms set out in the Convention or its Protocols.

14. The ECHR letter of dismissal dated 31 January 2012 refers to the applicant’s“application lodged on 5 September 2011”. In fact, the applicant’s application was lodgedwith the Court on 19 October 2011. On 5 September 2011, the applicant merely expressed hisintention to lodge an application with the Court.

III. BACKGROUND FACTS

15. The applicant believes that the activities complained of are directly linked to a 1997High Court case in Ireland involving the Roman Catholic Hospitaller Order of St John of Godwhich the applicant successfully defended in person, and his subsequent move to the UK in2003 to develop the then Network of those Abused by Church (NAC). The four-day HighCourt case was the first ever hearing of a ward of court action before a jury. The applicantalso applied to have the case heard publicly and – in another first in the history of the State –the ward of court process was opened to public scrutiny (see Annex 4, “Wards of court loserights and liberties”, The Irish Times (1997), p. 20). The applicant successfully argued beforea 12-person jury that the action, arising out of a dispute over his father’s will, was no morethan an attempt to cover up wrongdoing by the Hospitaller Order of St John of God in themid-1980s (see Annex 5 and 6 relating to the St John of God Order for details, pp. 21-23).

16. The St John of God Order is a Spanish Catholic congregation with over 300hospitals and centres in 53 countries throughout the world. The Order provides mental healthservices, care for older people and services for children and adults with disabilities. It is oneof 18 religious orders that signed up to the 2002 redress agreement between the congregations

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and the Irish Government which indemnified the orders from claims made by abuse victimsin exchange for payments and property capped at €127 million. According to The Irish Times,unpublished estimates compiled by senior Department of Education officials put the final billfor the redress scheme at €1.47 billion, up from the €1.36 billion that had been quoted. Thereare 138 religious congregations in Ireland, including the 18 held accountable by the State forabusing children in their institutions.

A. Birmingham (29 September 2003 to 3 November 2006)

17. Soon after arriving in the UK from Ireland on 18 August 2003, the applicant and hiswife settled in Birmingham to work on the NAC website (from 29 September 2003 to 3November 2006). From the outset of their first tenancy in the UK’s second city, they weresubjected to an orchestrated campaign of harassment and intimidation, which includeddifficulties with Internet access in public libraries, the maladministration of bank, electricity,gas and council tax accounts, and extensive damage caused by flooding from the flat above;all of which is well documented in the applicant’s personal website (now offline), withphotographs of the damage done to their flat. For two years, the applicant and his wifesurvived off their savings until they were forced onto state benefits in July 2005.

18. On 27 September 2006, the applicant’s joint claim for Jobseeker’s Allowance wasterminated by the Department for Work and Pensions because it was alleged by ErdingtonJobcentre in Birmingham that he did not sign on for Jobseeker’s Allowance earlier that day,when in fact he was not scheduled to sign on until two days later (see Annex 8, Departmentfor Work and Pensions: Letter terminating benefits claim, p. 25). A simple check of theapplicant’s and his wife’s previous signings would have established that they signed on everysecond Friday, not every second Wednesday. However, subsequent letters from the applicantto the Jobcentre and the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions went unanswered, in clearviolation of the Jobseeker’s Allowance Regulations 1996.

B. Sleeping rough in London (3 November 2006 to 13 July 2009)

19. For more than two-and-a-half years (from 3 November 2006 to 13 July 2009), theapplicant and his wife were forced to live rough on the streets of London, where theapplicant’s case regarding the termination of his joint benefits claim was dismissed by theHigh Court (Judicial Review), the Court of Appeal and the ECHR – only to be reinstatedthree months after they came off the streets (see paragraphs 22-23 below). Neither theapplicant nor his wife could be referred to a hostel due to not being on benefits and had tofrequent day centres for the homeless where they experienced harassment and violence at thehands of homeless people; all well documented with crime reference numbers and othersupporting evidence in the N4CM (then NAC) blog. Opened in November 2006, the N4CMblog also contains crime reference numbers, police stop/search records and other evidencewhich show that at night the applicant and his wife were attacked on several occasions,hosed, urinated on, and harassed by the police. The applicant complained in opencorrespondence to senior church leaders, police officers and politicians, but without effect onany front (see, for example, Annex 20, City of London Police: Reply from CommissionerMike Bowron (2009), pp. 48-49).

20. The applicant submits that the following three examples from his and his wife’s timeon the streets, by no means exhaustive, bear all the hallmarks of directed surveillance (i.e.surveillance that is covert but not intrusive):

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(1) On 22 September 2007, at a time when the applicant was answering questions on theJames Randi Educational Foundation Forum to raise money to help him and his wifesurvive on the streets, his wife was severely assaulted while sleeping (crime reference no.CR/007884/07);

(2) On 8 March 2008, three days after an email from the Home Office stating that it wasunlikely the applicant’s emails were being intercepted, the then NAC website wasremoved permanently from the Internet (see N4CM blog of 14 March 2008, “SpamCopreports Declan as a spammer”);

(3) On 18 June 2008, the same morning the applicant was due to post his secondRequest for Priority to the ECHR, all their money and documents were stolen in a daycentre for the homeless run by the Roman Catholic Sisters of Mercy (crime reference no.4215697/08). The Sisters of Mercy subsequently refused to release CCTV footage of therobbery to the police (see Annex 7, Sisters of Mercy: Reply from Apostolic Nuncio toGreat Britain, p. 24).

21. The applicant’s Internet activity was monitored and restricted throughout the time heand his wife were confined to living on the streets. In October 2007, he began an onlinepetition to the United Nations in support of embryonic stem cell research. This petition hadbeen signed by 22 Nobel Prize winners by the time the NAC website was removed from theInternet (see paragraph 20(2) above). In an email of 29 February 2008 to then HomeSecretary Jacqueline Smith, the applicant not only complained of interception but pointed outthat all emails sent to him after 12 August 2007 had been moved to Trash and over 300 draftdocuments deleted, including the names and email addresses of more than 2,500 scientistsfrom around the world (see Annex 10, Home Office: Complaint to Home Secretary reinterception, p. 27). The applicant still complains about interception to this day (seeparagraphs 34-35 below).

C. London (13 July 2009 to 14 March 2013)

22. On 13 July 2009, through an associate in America, the applicant and his wife wereput in contact with human rights activist Belinda McKenzie after the applicant received anemail earlier in the day from the City of London Police confirming that, without a courtorder, the police would require him and his wife to move from where they had been sleepingfor almost a year (see Annex 20, City of London Police: Reply from Commissioner MikeBowron (2009), pp. 48-49). Ms McKenzie, who had previously housed MI5 whistleblowerDavid Shayler for a couple of years (see paragraph 7 above), agreed that the applicant and hiswife could live in her home as tenants in an upstairs self-contained flat. On 24 July 2009, MsMcKenzie wrote to the same associate in America stating that it was her expectation that herhouse will become an “in house charity” for impoverished activists supported by “some kindof international fund”.

23. Three months after the tenancy began, on 9 October 2009, the applicant had his jointclaim for Jobseeker’s Allowance reinstated. However, the applicant and his wife continued tobe the targets of a well-orchestrated campaign of harassment and intimidation (see Annex 12,Belinda McKenzie: Letter to Prime Minister re property warrant, p. 29). Here are just twoillustrative examples of the sorts of tactics employed in this campaign and come from the lastyear of the tenancy alone:

(1) On 24 January 2012, High Court Judge Mitting ruled in the case of Heavey vLondon Borough of Haringey that it was lawful for Haringey Council to leave the

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applicant with a shortfall of £76.92 in rent to pay each month because the Council coveredhis annual rent liability (see Annex 11, Haringey Council: Order by High Court JudgeMitting, p. 28). These shortfalls arose from the difference between the applicant’s housingbenefit payments of £230.77 per week, paid fortnightly at the rate of £461.54 (£923.08 perfour week period) and his monthly rent liability of £1000. The applicant was only able tomeet these shortfalls throughout the rental year out of his Jobseeker’s Allowance (for bothhis wife and himself) of £111.45 per week because he paid rent inclusive of all extraneouscharges save telephone line.

(2) On 21 August 2012, Ms McKenzie signed an undertaking to the Court promising notto harass the applicant and his wife following her builder’s removal of the door to their flat(see Annex 13, Belinda McKenzie: Undertaking to the Court promising not to harass, pp.30-31). Ms McKenzie explained to the Court: “I removed the interconnecting door thatmakes the flat self-contained in order to signal to them that their tenancy was over, in mymind anyway. They immediately called the police who said I had a right to remove myown door.” The Metropolitan Police refused to charge Ms McKenzie with a criminaloffence, stating: “On arrival the officers have established that your landlady had arrangedfor a builder to remove the front door which she stated, you had erected without herpermission”. On 26 June 2013, the Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC)upheld the applicant’s appeal against the police investigation into his complaint “oninformation only”, deciding nonetheless that the evidence “does not indicate that acriminal offence may have been committed” and that “no further action is required by theforce in this instance” (see Annex 18, Belinda McKenzie: Independent Police ComplaintsCommission Report, pp. 40-46).

24. On 17 October 2012, Deputy District Judge Peart issued an accelerated possessionorder granting Ms McKenzie possession of the applicant and his wife’s flat on 1 November2012 (see Annex 14, Belinda McKenzie: Accelerated Possession Order by Deputy DistrictJudge Peart, p. 32). At an appeal hearing, District Judge Alderson acknowledged that therewas a note in the file from Peart J stating that he had not read the applicant’s defence.Alderson J conceded that Ms McKenzie’s claim for accelerated possession did not contain thecorrect paperwork; however, because he had all the paperwork relating to the tenancy in theapplicant’s appeal bundle, he set aside Peart J’s accelerated possession order and issued anordinary possession order with the same effect as the former, i.e. eviction within two weeksof his order (see Annex 15, Belinda McKenzie: Possession Order by District Judge Alderson,p. 33). On 11 March 2013, Circuit Judge Cryan refused the applicant permission to appeal tothe Circuit Court against a decision by the District Court to refuse him a stay of eviction.Cryan J had before him a statement from Ms McKenzie’s ex-husband, Dr Nigel McKenzie, aconsultant psychiatrist in Highgate Mental Health Centre, stating that the applicant and hiswife’s flat was required for somebody with a mental illness. He dismissed the applicant’srequest for permission to appeal on the basis that it had no reasonable prospects of success(see Annex 17, Belinda McKenzie: Eviction Order by Circuit Judge Cryan, p. 39).Accordingly, the applicant and his wife were evicted from their flat by the bailiff on 14March 2013.

25. In his Permission to Appeal application, the applicant provided Cryan J with ampleevidence that he and his wife had been experiencing an accommodation blockade for the bestpart of a year previous, including, inter alia, the interception of privileged communications,the sabotage of flat viewings, Internet cuts (41 recorded times in the preceding two weeksalone), and the refusal of assistance by Haringey Council because they were not deemed to bea ‘priority need’, e.g. they had no children, the applicant’s wife was not pregnant, they werenot vulnerable as a result of age (young or old), disability, mental health issues, etc. (see

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Annex 16, Belinda McKenzie: Skeleton Argument filed in the possession appeal, pp. 34-38).Following their eviction on 14 March 2013, the applicant and his wife attempted to break thisaccommodation blockade through surveillance by relocating to Brighton, described byneedaproperty.com as “an ideal location to find flats”.

D. Brighton (14 March to 5 April 2013)

26. While staying in a bed and breakfast in Brighton (from 14 March to 5 April 2013),the applicant and his wife ran into the same accommodation blockade through surveillancethat had been maintained in London for the best part of a year previous (see paragraph 25above). During the three weeks they stayed in the city, they were subjected to Internet cuts inthe bed and breakfast and local library, and over 40 letting agents contacted failed to get backto the applicant with a flat viewing. The applicant was also denied assistance by Brighton andHove City Council on the same grounds as listed by Haringey Council in London, andBrighton Housing Trust could only advise him and his wife to pack up and leave the city.

27. On 26 March 2013, having secured a commitment from a benefactor in America foran interest free loan to cover his first six months’ rent (to be paid back through the Council’sHousing Benefit scheme), the applicant viewed a one bedroom flat advertised in the localnewspaper. The landlord was willing to accept six months’ rent up front with a creditreference; however, forty minutes after texting the applicant his email address for thisreference, the landlord withdrew his offer of the flat by text (see Annex 19, Brighton:Landlord’s text messages, p. 47). Thereafter, the applicant was unable to obtain a flat viewingin Brighton or the surrounding areas, despite talking with a number of landlords over thetelephone who had advertised in the local newspaper and/or on the Gumtree website. Theapplicant and his wife were forced to return to London on 5 April 2013 in a last desperateattempt to avoid homelessness.

E. Back to sleeping rough in London (14 April 2013 to the present day)

28. As a direct result of the accommodation blockade through surveillance that theapplicant and his wife experienced in London and in Brighton for the best part of a yearprevious (see paragraphs 25-27 above), they were forced back onto the streets of the capitalon 14 April 2013. They returned to the same rough sleeping pitch they had before coming offthe streets in July 2009, located on a derelict highwalk at the back of Salters’ Hall in the Cityof London – until it was fenced off on 16 September 2013 (see paragraph 31 below). Fromthe outset Broadway Homelessness and Support (“Broadway”), which has charitableresponsibility for the applicant and his wife as rough sleepers within its catchment area,denied them support to access the private rented sector and continues to do so (see paragraph29 below). This notwithstanding that the applicant: (a) has been provided with the deposit ona flat and one months’ rent up front by a benefactor in America, (b) has a perfect HousingBenefit track record, (c) has an immaculate recent credit report from the credit reportingagency Experian, and (d) has a wholly acceptable reference letter from his previous tenancystating that the applicant and his wife “kept the property in very good order, were quite andpaid the rent on time”.

29. On 29 August 2013, the applicant lodged an application with the High Court forpermission to seek a judicial review against the Commissioner of Police for the City ofLondon Adrian Leppard and Home Secretary Theresa May following the former’s decisionnot to ask Broadway to engage with them in relation to their welfare and access to thecharity’s service for supporting clients to find alternative accommodation (see Annex 21, City

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of London Police: Reply from Commissioner Adrian Leppard (2013), p. 50). The applicanthas contended in court papers that it is unreasonable for the City of London Police to refuseto ask Broadway to support him and his wife to access the private rented sector while at thesame time threatening them with hosings by street cleaners (see Annex 23, City of LondonPolice: Application for Judicial Review, pp. 53-58). The following incidents occurred beforethe applicant commenced proceedings in the High Court against the said two defendants, andare each well documented on the N4CM blog with supporting photographic evidence (seeAnnex 25, City of London Police: A sampler of sleeping pitch photographs, pp. 60-62):

(1) On 20 July 2013, following an alleged complaint (not from the Salters’ Company),two City of London Police officers told the applicant and his wife to move on and withstreet cleaners present threatened them with a hosing later that night;

(2) On 29 July 2013, the applicant and his wife returned to their sleeping pitch only tofind it covered in heavy duty cleaning product;

(3) On 1 August 2013, the applicant and his wife returned to their sleeping pitch to findit drenched with diesel; and

(4) On 17 August 2013, the applicant and his wife were woken by a police officer in theearly hours of the morning and again threatened with street cleaners.

30. Since the applicant commenced proceedings in the High Court against theCommissioner of Police for the City of London and Home Secretary on 29 August 2013, thefollowing incidents have been well documented on the N4CM blog with supportingphotographic evidence (see Annex 25, City of London Police: A sampler of sleeping pitchphotographs, pp. 60-62):

(1) On 2 September 2013, the applicant’s wife returned to their sleeping pitch to find itsplashed with a sticky green liquid;

(2) On 6 September 2013, the applicant and his wife were woken by a police officer inthe early hours of the morning and again threatened with street cleaners;

(3) On 12 September 2013, the applicant and his wife were not only threatened by apolice officer with street cleaners, but were told that stop/searches by the City of LondonPolice at all hours of the morning and night would become a more regular occurrence; and

(4) On 13 September 2013, the applicant and his wife were woken in the early hours ofthe morning by a police officer, threatened with street cleaners, and told that the next timethey would be stopped/searched they would be asked to move on.

31. On 16 September 2013, the applicant and his wife returned to their sleeping pitch tofind that it had been fenced off. Accordingly, they have been forced to sleep at the front of theSalters’ building below street level, where they are subjected to anything up to two hours ofsleep deprivation by cleaners in the early hours of every week-day morning, and threatenedwith hosings that have already been applied (see N4CM blog of 23 September 2013, “TheSalters’ Company: Declan visits the police station following another hosing”). The Salters’Company, one of the most respected champions of improvements in science education in theUK, in reply to an email the applicant sent to the Master of the Company Prof Sir John Hol -man (University of York), stated on 24 May 2013 that “we are not in a position to take anyaction on your behalf and therefore please do not expect any further responses to any further

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communications from you. I wish you success in finding suitable accommodation in duecourse” (see Annex 24, City of London Police: Reply from Salters’ Company, p. 59). The ap-plicant and his wife are deeply concerned that she may have to sign off his joint claim forJobseeker’s Allowance due to sleep deprivation and the threat or further application of hos-ings, which may render the demands of any new jobseeker’s agreement by Department forWork and Pensions impossible to fulfil through no fault of their own. This situation is furtherexacerbated by having their bandwidths repeatedly ‘squeezed’ in public libraries (see, for ex-ample, the applicant’s wife’s posting in the N4CM blog of 12 October 2013, “No internetconnection in Southwark Council’s John Harvard Library while all around me surf withoutdifficulty”).

32. In March 2013, Broadway CEO Howard Sinclair wrote in The Guardian that thereare occasions when the charity has accommodated rough sleepers straight from the streets. Inaddition to the Mayor of London providing Broadway with £5 million under his No SecondNight Out project (to end rough sleeping in the capital), the charity has received £10 millionfrom London and Quadrant Housing Trust, alongside the support of three other trusts, toaccommodate people in London for whom there has been no other option, according to MrSinclair in the same article. Yet, in over six months since the applicant and his wife becamehomeless on 14 April 2013, Broadway’s City Outreach team have never spoken to them whenthey are bedded down, nor will they confirm or deny their verification as rough sleepers.Moreover, the applicant’s pre-action letter dated 2 August 2013 was not even acknowledgedreceived by the Commissioner of Police for the City of London and/or Home Secretary, inclear breach of the pre-action protocol for judicial review claims prescribed in Rule 54 of theCivil Procedure Rules (see Annex 22, City of London Police: Letter Before Claim for JudicialReview, pp. 51-52). The applicant still awaits a ruling from the High Court following thisflagrant disregard for the pre-action protocol process.

F. Surveillance, free speech and the right to privacy

33. The Church and State website, an initiative of N4CM, has been removed from theInternet on five distinct occasions. Most recently, in May 2012, Just Host, the domain’s thenregistrar, changed the domain name server records without permission or authorisation anddisabled the applicant’s wife’s facility to correct these records herself (see Annex 26, JustHost: Complaint to European Commission, pp. 63-68). No sooner had the applicant’s wifesuccessfully transferred the domain name to SiteGround’s registrar on 8 June 2012, than, on14 June 2012, the site was vandalised to such an extent that the applicant’s wife was advisedby the wordpress theme designers that she had no option but to scratch the theme she hadbeen working with for over two years and start over with a new theme (see Annex 27,WordPress: Final exchange with theme designer, p. 69). The Chairman of N4CM, Dr StephenD Mumford from North Carolina, US, has been funding the site since December 2010, anddomain since June 2012. Nonetheless, the site continues to be attacked; for example, theapplicant’s wife has posted blogs showing that articles throughout the N4CM website areregularly targeted, and this includes the reduction of Facebook share counts in every sectionof the site by anything up to 600 shares a time to date.

34. The applicant further complains that the extent of the manipulation and control ofhis and his wife’s emails has resulted in the shelving for almost three years of his petition tothe United Nations in support of embryonic stem cell research, notwithstanding that thepetition has been signed by no less than 29 Nobel Prize winners as well as hundreds of otherdistinguished scholars from around the world. It has also resulted in the shelving of theapplicant’s statement to President Barack Obama and members of the US Congress regardingforest conservation, published in April 2011, which within 48 hours had been signed by a

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recipient of the Blue Plant Prize, widely considered the environmental equivalent of a Nobelaward. In April 2010, an associate of the applicant’s in America wrote to MinisterFeatherstone, stating: “I am truly appalled by the unlawful violation of the Heavey’s basicright to send and receive email without interference. I would be most grateful for anythingyou may be able to do by way of taking measures to correct this gross abuse.” Within the lastfew months alone, the applicant has accumulated evidence that unequivocally reveal thatseveral emails from associates in America have not been received by him and vice versa.

35. Despite Minister Featherstone’s letter to the Home Secretary in June 2010 regardinginterception (see paragraph 5 above), there has been no response from the Home Office intowhy the applicant and his wife continue to encounter problems with their email. Theapplicant has also amassed irrefutable evidence relating to the sabotage of his and his wife’smail, including the non-delivery of registered items. In the case of Heavey v HaringeyCouncil (see paragraph 23(1) above), the applicant was denied an oral hearing which heotherwise would have been entitled to had he received an order from the Court when it wassent to him. Subsequently, the applicant’s application for an order extending time forrenewing his application for permission to apply for judicial review to an oral hearing and forthe file of his claim to be re-opened was refused by Mitting J (see Annex 11, HaringeyCouncil: Order by High Court Judge Mitting, p. 28). On 10 July 2013, the applicantcomplained to the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions about the Department for Workand Pensions and its manipulation of data on his joint claim for Jobseeker ’s Allowance,including but not limited to changing the applicant’s wife’s name on the claim without herconsent or authorisation (see Annex 9, Department for Work and Pensions: Complaint toSecretary of State re manipulation of data, p. 26).

36. The applicant submits that the harassment, intimidation and discrimination he andhis wife continue to experience is politically motivated, that it is the product of directedsurveillance, and that it is certain to continue. In June 2012, the applicant received a responsefrom the European Commission concerning the problems his wife encountered when seekingto renew her passport at the Irish Passport Office in London. She had been told by a passportofficer that her application could not be processed unless she surrendered the originals of allher proof documents notwithstanding her problems with post (see paragraph 35 above). Thisis something the applicant was not asked to do when he renewed his passport in December2011. According to the EC Directorate-General for Justice, given that Irish law provides forpassports to be issued and renewed, Ireland complies with its obligations under EU lawregardless of how “burdensome or unwarranted” the requirements of the Irish authoritiesmight be (see Annex 28, Irish Passport Office in London: Reply from European Commission,p. 70). The inescapable conclusion to be drawn from this reason as to why it was not open forthe European Commission to pursue the applicant’s wife’s case further is that under EU lawthere is no remedy for discrimination.

37. The applicant and his wife may soon be forced to seek safe haven in a NorthernEuropean country on the grounds that they have been persecuted in the UK and have a well-founded fear of further persecution because of their political opinion. They are particularlyconcerned about the threat to life, limb and liberty posed by their homelessness as a result ofan accommodation blockade through surveillance that has been maintained for over a yearand shows no signs of abating (see paragraphs 25-32 above).

IV. VIOLATION OF ARTICLE 19 OF THE COVENANT

38. Article 19 of the Covenant provides, in pertinent part:

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2. Everyone shall have the right to freedom of expression; this right shall include freedom to seek,receive and impart information and ideas of all kinds, regardless of frontiers, whether orally, inwriting or in print, in the form of art, or through any other media of his choice.

3. The exercise of the rights provided for in paragraph 2 of this Article carries with it specialduties and responsibilities. It may therefore be subject to certain restrictions, but these shall onlybe such as are provided by law and are necessary:

a) For the respect of the rights or reputations of others;b) For the protection of national security or of public order, or of public health or morals.

39. The applicant and his wife are indisputably targeted because they are impartinginformation through the N4CM website which is often critical of church authorities, inparticular the Vatican and the hierarchy of the Catholic Church. The types of action taken byStates to limit the dissemination of content online not only include measures to preventinformation from reaching the end-user, but also direct targeting of those who seek, receiveand impart politically sensitive information via the Internet. Physically silencing criticism ordissent through harassment and intimidation is an old phenomenon, and also applies toInternet users. This issue has been explored in the Special Rapporteur’s report to the GeneralAssembly under the section on “protection of citizen journalists” (A/65/284). Such actionsare often aimed not only to silence legitimate expression, but also to intimidate a populationto push its members towards self-censorship.

40. Freedom of expression, as protected under Article 19 of the Covenant, has been re-cognised by international tribunals, national courts and commentators as vital not only to thedevelopment of the individual, but to the securing and protecting of democracy itself. As theCommittee has explained: “It is in the essence of [free and democratic] societies that its cit -izens must be allowed to inform themselves about alternatives to the political system/partiesin power, and that they may criticize or openly and publicly evaluate their Governments …within the limits set by Article 19, paragraph 3” (see Aduayom et al. v. Togo, CommunicationNos. 422-24/1990 (1996), § 7.4).

41. According to the Report of the Special Rapporteur on the promotion and protectionof the right to freedom of opinion and expression (A/66/290):

…restrictions must be formulated in a way that makes clear that its sole purpose is to protect indi-viduals from hostility, discrimination or violence, rather than to protect belief systems, religions orinstitutions from criticism. The right to freedom of expression implies that it should be possible toscrutinize, openly debate and criticize, even harshly and unreasonably, ideas, opinions, belief sys-tems and institutions, including religious ones, as long as this does not advocate hatred that inciteshostility, discrimination or violence against an individual or a group of individuals.

42. Furthermore, the Special Rapporteur stresses that, as stipulated in Human RightsCouncil resolution 12/16 (para. 5(p)(i)), the following types of expression should never besubject to restrictions: discussion of government policies and political debate; reporting onhuman rights, government activities and corruption in government; engaging in election cam-paigns, peaceful demonstrations or political activities, including for peace or democracy; andexpression of opinion and dissent, religion or belief, including by persons belonging tominorities or vulnerable groups.

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Why the Vatican and the hierarchy of the Catholic Church should be monitored

43. If the Special Rapporteur was concerned that the restrictions just referred to createdproblems under Article 19, the Committee will surely find the harassment and intimidationthat the applicant and his wife endure to be troubling. Sadly, the institution of the RomanCatholic Church appears to have become a political one above all else. To survive and expandfor so many centuries it was compelled to become a political power, and it has become afinancial power as well. Sometimes the Church undertakes activities that are political oreconomic under the guise of religion. But the image of the Catholic Church presented by themainstream media does not reflect these realities.

44. N4CM Chairman Dr Stephen Mumford, the founder and President of the Center forResearch on Population and Security in North Carolina, US, has written extensively about theVatican’s grave threat to the future of humankind and the democratic institutions of theUnited States posed by the Catholic Church. He has revealed that the Church has exertedgreat influence on US policy in population matters as a result of its intimidation of electedofficials and the built-in reverence most Americans have for an ecclesiastical hierarchy. Theteachings of the Church and its hierarchy’s insistence that these teachings be followed haveresulted in an unintentional suppression of the substantial knowledge about the consequencesof overpopulation. The main source of energy, organization, and direction of the anti-abortionmovement in the United States and the movement to frustrate enforcement of USimmigration laws is the Roman Catholic Church.

45. In his book American Democracy and The Vatican, Dr Mumford reveals that theCatholic Church, in effect, controls most governments in Latin America and many in Africaand the Philippines. Authorities in these countries live under constant intimidation by theChurch, which can threaten to bring about the downfall of a regime by arousing its citizensthrough pastoral letters and other means should the government refuse to conform to theChurch’s agenda. This ultimate step is ordinarily avoided through manipulation – by weedingout “troublemakers” before they rise to power. On the other hand, those who are loyal arewell rewarded in their search for positions of power; they are assisted by the Church in theirascension to high positions in government. Government leaders who owe their first loyalty tothe Vatican represent different proportions of office holders in different countries.

46. Dr Mumford cites an example in Chile. In 1979, with approval from the minister ofhealth of Chile, Dr Ben Viel began setting up a female sterilization program with $1 millionworth of sterilization equipment provided by the International Planned Parenthood Federationin London. When the equipment arrived in Chile, a Father Ibanes Langlois, serving as amessenger for the Vatican, met with the president of Chile. There was then and continues tobe a disagreement between Chile and Argentina, almost bringing the two countries to warover the Beagle Channel at the tip of South America, that may prove to be rich in oil. Chileand Argentina had agreed to let the pope mediate the dispute. Langlois informed the presidentthat, if this sterilization equipment was not removed from Chile, the pope would favourArgentina in the settling of the Beagle Channel dispute. The president called in the ministerof health and ordered him to get the sterilization equipment out of the country. Dr Viel was sonotified by the minister of health, and it was shipped out.

47. In a 1992 videotaped interview with Dr Mumford (available for public viewing forthe first time on N4CM’s Church and State website), Prof Milton Siegel details how theVatican seized control of World Health Organization (WHO) family-planning/contraception-related policy-making right from its earliest stages. Prof Siegel was the Assistant Director-General of WHO for its first 24 years, and considered among the world’s foremost authorities

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on the development of WHO policy. During the third World Health Assembly (1950), theVatican threatened to kill WHO and start their own organization if the director general did notstand up before the Assembly and specifically state that WHO would not get involved withfamily planning, which he duly did. WHO did not get involved at all for more than a decade.In its 64-year history, WHO has had a deplorable record in family planning. Its commitmenthas been minuscule, and even today family planning accounts for only a tiny fraction of itsbudget. The Vatican continues to have considerable influence at WHO. For example, in themid-1990s it succeeded in having appointed as director of WHO’s Human ReproductionProgram a professor from a Catholic University in Rome, Dr Giuseppe Benagiano, the son ofPope Paul VI’s dentist. Dr Benagiano promptly set out to kill any further clinical studies of anon-surgical method of female sterilization called quinacrine sterilization, or QS. At thattime, it had been accepted voluntarily by more than 50,000 Vietnamese women with noreported deaths or life-threatening complications (see Annex 29, “WHO creates demand forabortions”, Pittsburgh Tribune-Review (2004), p. 71).

48. The Vatican has, points out Paul Blanshard in American Freedom and CatholicPower, a full civil government with a flag, a police force, courts and postage stamps. It issuescurrency and passports to its citizens, and has a large and active diplomatic corps, headed bya Secretary of State with ambassadors called nuncios. The government is completelyautocratic with all legislative powers vested in the pope. This means that there is noseparation of church and state. It also means that the Vatican claims jurisdiction “everywherewhere there are Catholics”. It claims representation in the United Nations and functions like anation-state in international gatherings at the same time that it functions like a church. Yet,politicians would never investigate the Vatican’s numerous attempts to influence or controlnation states’ foreign or domestic policy because, like a chameleon, it would claim it wasmerely functioning as a church, not as a state. In fact, it is already so powerful that anyonewho tried to investigate it would find such an endeavour a political liability.

49. The inescapable conclusion to be drawn from these observations is that the CatholicChurch is skilfully manipulating governments and influencing international bodies of apurely secular nature. The Vatican uses its position not only to protect its autonomy fromoutside intervention, but to impose its view on the rest of the world. Numerous observersover the years, including scholar Paul Blanchard, have correctly described the CatholicChurch as a political institution cloaked in religion.

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TABLE OF ANNEXES

ANNEX 1: MI5/GCHQ: MI5 whistleblower David Shayler 17

ANNEX 2: MI5/GCHQ: Investigatory Powers Tribunal Decision 18

ANNEX 3: MI5/GCHQ: European Court of Human Rights Decision 19

ANNEX 4: “Wards of court lose rights and liberties”, The Irish Times (1997) 20

ANNEX 5: St John of God Order: Complaint by Elliott Duffy Garrett Solicitors 21

ANNEX 6: St John of God Order: Reply from Provincial of All Ireland 23

ANNEX 7: Sisters of Mercy: Reply from Apostolic Nuncio to Great Britain 24

ANNEX 8: Department for Work and Pensions: Letter terminating benefits claim 25

ANNEX 9: Department for Work and Pensions: Complaint to Secretary of State 26

ANNEX 10: Home Office: Complaint to Home Secretary re interception 27

ANNEX 11: Haringey Council: Order by High Court Judge Mitting 28

ANNEX 12: Belinda McKenzie: Letter to Prime Minister re property warrant 29

ANNEX 13: Belinda McKenzie: Undertaking to the Court promising not to harass 30

ANNEX 14: Belinda McKenzie: Accelerated Possession Order by DDJ Peart 32

ANNEX 15: Belinda McKenzie: Possession Order by District Judge Alderson 33

ANNEX 16: Belinda McKenzie: Skeleton Argument filed in possession appeal 34

ANNEX 17: Belinda McKenzie: Eviction Order by Circuit Judge Cryan 39

ANNEX 18: Belinda McKenzie: Independent Police Complaints Commission Report 40

ANNEX 19: Brighton: Landlord’s text messages 47

ANNEX 20: City of London Police: Reply from Commissioner Mike Bowron (2009) 48

ANNEX 21: City of London Police: Reply from Commissioner Adrian Leppard (2013) 50

ANNEX 22: City of London Police: Letter Before Claim for Judicial Review 51

ANNEX 23: City of London Police: Application for Judicial Review 53

ANNEX 24: City of London Police: Reply from Salters’ Company 59

ANNEX 25: City of London Police: A sampler of sleeping pitch photographs 60

ANNEX 26: Just Host: Complaint to European Commission 63

ANNEX 27: WordPress: Final exchange with theme designer 69

ANNEX 28: Irish Passport Office in London: Reply from European Commission 70

ANNEX 29: “WHO creates demand for abortions”, Pittsburgh Tribune-Review (2004) 71

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ANNEX 2