Monday, September 05, 2011

Introductory letter to the European Court of Human Rights


It was only on 10 August that Declan dispatched the application above to the Investigatory Powers Tribunal (IPT) regarding the interception of our communications and unlawful directed surveillance. However, on Saturday we received a letter from the Tribunal dismissing Declan's claim; and, for good measure, gratuitously insulting us too - by calling Declan's application "obviously unsustainable". The insult is particularly offensive because within two weeks of the dispatch of the application, Facebook disabled my account (see blog here); our web host, SiteGround, twice blocked my IP address (see blog here); our live-in landlady, human rights activist Belinda McKenzie, served us with five months notice to vacate what has been our home since 2009 (see blog here); and Haringey Council left us with an unprecedented £77 shortfall in rent to pay (see blog here). Now Facebook threatens to permanently disable my account the next time I post on a Facebook page with similar interests (see previous blog).

Perhaps this is just the IPT's way of going about their business - after all, as Declan points out in his introductory letter to the European Court of Human Rights below, the Tribunal has only ever upheld ten complaints since its inception in 2000. Declan also mentions a 2009 report from the New Internationalist headlined, with good evidence, "Police surveillance and intimidation of political activists in the UK is hitting new heights". The Guardian recently exposed that an 85-year-old peace campaigner has been classified by police as a "domestic extremist".

Anyway, Declan has wasted no time kicking off his case under Articles 8 (right to respect for private and family life and correspondence) and 13 (right to an effective remedy) of the European Convention on Human Rights:
Click to enlarge (pdf)

We have yet to get a receipt from Belinda for the full rent we paid on 26 August. MI5 whistleblower David Shayler lived for a couple of years in one of the rooms below us, until 2007 more or less. According to the BBC, Shayler "caused the biggest crisis of official secrecy since the spy catcher affair". By around 2007, he had been successfully neutralised: he changed his name to Delores Kane, declared himself to be Jesus, and became a squatter. A New Statesman article dated 11 September 2006 featuring Belinda and Shayler gives no indication that he believed he was the Messiah at that time, nor that he had changed his name to Delores Kane.