Sunday, January 06, 2008

European Court of Human Rights declines to expedite Declan’s case

Declan has received a letter from the European Court of Human Rights in respect of his request of 8 September for priority under Rule 41 of the Rules of the Court. The Court is not going to consider the request, and will examine his application, also of 8 September, possibly before the end of the month. According to Philip Leach in Taking a Case to the European Court of Human Rights, cases "usually take at least four to five years to progress through the system (if they pass through the admissibility stage) and some cases take longer", so obviously we are not very happy about this.

In addition to providing the Court with full reasons for expedition, Declan also sent the Registrar his latest hospital discharge summary report of 4 October (this time from the Royal London Hospital, where he was hospitalised for two days with a viral infection), my police statement of 22 September (I was woken by a guy who repeatedly kicked me in the chest and shoulders), and two tickets police issued to me for begging on 13 and 14 November. Alas, we were not able to convince the Court of the merits of the case.

Anybody browsing through this blog cannot but note that it has been some achievement to survive on the streets for so long. I haven't written anything since 25 November, primarily because we have been too busy, but the entries in my diary since then – I have been keeping a diary in case I am arrested for begging and brought before a court – might have inspired Charles Dickens for one of his books. Among other things: we stand in our registered pitches to sell The Big Issue (a magazine sold by homeless people) in the bitter cold and rain and still the London Lite and The London Paper regularly take over Declan's pitch (oh, on three occasions a Big Issue vendor refused to leave Declan's pitch when asked); for two nights of the second weekend of December we were graced with the alarm of the porch we sleep in, all night; and on 15 December somebody defecated and urinated in the porch (a first). Things like walking everywhere carrying all our belongings (as result of all the problems while attempting to sell The Big Issue, we haven't been able to afford transport since July), being reduced to washing in public toilets (we were barred back in June from the Methodist Church-run Whitechapel Mission due to concerns about our safety), and wearing clothes barely fit for a scarecrow (the last time I asked the nun in charge of clothes in the Sisters of Mercy-run Dellow Centre, she didn't have a pair of jeans for me, and gave me a jumper so old you can't figure out its colour) don't even register in this diary.

All of that being said, we consider it a small price to pay in light of the success of Declan's petition to the UN in support of research cloning of embryos and stem cells: 151 signatories so far, including 20 Nobel Laureates. We are incredibly frustrated though, because despite that we get up at 4.50am every morning and go to sleep around 10.00pm, the time we get to spend on computers is only a fraction: everyday we walk two or three hours; have to queue outside the Dellow Centre for even a cup of tea; stand in our Big Issue pitches unless it is extremely cold or particularly rainy; one of us must stand over all our bags while the other washes in public toilets (more time ridiculously wasted); and Declan takes what it seems to me forever collecting cardboard and securing the bags for the night.

There really is not much work we can do in such a short space of time. I do the research and the emailing, while Declan has the difficult job of maintaining the spreadsheet, which contains all kinds of relevant information, including the date(s) scientists have been emailed. Research from a public library is particularly nightmarish, so I have a notebook and also use a couple of free on-line bookmarking services to store pages I find on the web – I have them in dozens of folders and subfolders for quick access. My ultimate objective is to build a campaign to accompany this petition, and our model is Oxfam International's website ‘Make Fair Trade’, which 20 million have signed to date. I also think wildly interesting the page that Greenpeace UK has created in relation to the current proposal to build a sixth terminal at Heathrow Airport – what a brilliant idea for people who support embryonic stem cell research to put their comments on a video. Still, I have hundreds of scientists that we want to email but haven't because I don't have the time.

A matter of particular worry to us is how many emails are actually getting through. Declan has already been informed by some signatories that they didn't receive the email he had referred to, despite me having a record of it having been sent. Last week, for example, I found two emails from scientists, asking Declan to add their name to the petition, in the spam box! We believe France in particular is targeted in this regard: our spreadsheet is broken up into batches of 10 and you can see that in some batches containing mainly French scientists nobody has signed. We are aware that the late Italian Luca Coscioni sent faxes to scientists when he was seeking their support and Declan would very much like to supplement the emailing with faxes and phone calls, at least to leading scientists and Nobel Laureates.

Even when I have more time at my disposal I encounter difficulties. Take last Friday. Because we only had two Big Issues to sell come evening time – due to the difficulties with Declan’s pitch and my pitch not being a very good one, we can only afford to buy 5 or 6 magazines a day – I stayed in the Idea Store Whitechapel library only to lose my computer to another person. This afternoon I also ran into problems. A member of staff refused to book me a computer for a fourth hour, despite that she can override the library’s 3-hour limit if there are computers available at the time, and if it wasn't because Declan confronted her with an email from her manager informing him of procedure, I would have found myself at 3.00pm with nothing to do. I had the same problem just prior to the holiday period: a member of staff more or less told me that if the library was deserted and all the computers were free, she still would refuse to book me. Of course when things like that happen we go to the internet café – if we have £3 we buy ourselves 7 hours. Anyway, this is the email that Declan sent to the manager of Idea Store Whitechapel on Friday night:

Subject: Internet access

Dear Mr Abidin,

I wish to confirm that this evening, in the middle of a 1-hour session on computer 15 on floor 1 in Idea Store Whitechapel, my wife (card no. D000350314) had to re-start the computer after an unexpected interference with her work and lost her booking to another customer. A member of your staff (name withheld) informed my wife that she had to give the computer up.

Please would you acknowledge receipt. Below is a copy of my email to you of 14 November, to which I did not receive a response.

Yours sincerely,
Declan Heavey

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

Subject: Internet access

Dear Mr Abidin,

My previous correspondence refers. I wish to confirm that this evening, in the middle of a one-hour session on computer 15 on floor 1 in Idea Store Whitechapel, and as verified by your floor supervisor Ms Nadine Lasmel at 6.30pm, my wife (card no. D000350314) was unable to open any page from the internet or send an email.

Yours sincerely,
Declan Heavey
Card no. D000355837