End Prevent involvement for Filton18's Leona Kamio
Restore Leona's rights: urgent action needed
IMPACT
Hundreds of people wrote to Eastwood Park's prison governor for Leona, and since then, the Prevent officer’s harassment has stopped. Leona also got her prison money back to purchase food and supplements and she was able to get back in contact with her loved ones.
BACKGROUND
Leona Kamio is a forest school nursery teacher and a regenerative farmer, she is also one of the Filton18. She was arrested at the Elbit Systems Filton site on 6th August after taking direct action destroying weapons including quadcopters that were set to be used in the Gaza genocide, allegedly causing over £2million worth of damage.
Leona was arrested alongside her mother Emma under counter terrorism powers, enabling police to hold them without charge for over a week. Her mother Emma was released without further action, and has been campaigning for her daughter since.
Leona was originally held at Bronzefield, but in mid December she was suddenly moved to another prison Eastwood Park without warning. There she was held in the induction wing for over a month, and then another huge wing with complex issues for a month, taking longer than usual for her to settle into the new prison. Leona immediately requested a gardening job again, like she had been doing at Bronzefield.
Leona was visited by a suspected Prevent officer, Simon Biggs, who introduced himself as a counter terrorism officer. After his visits, despite him giving her the impression he will ‘help’ Leona, it only resulted in a denial of her fundamental rights in prison:
1 - Leona was denied money sent in for her canteen based on spurious grounds
2 - This in turn meant she had no money in her account in order to make phone calls to her family and friends
3 - This also means she was unable to purchase food items from the canteen which supplements her diet (that the prison does not adequately provide), including vitamins needed for health concerns
4 - She has also been denied resuming work as a gardner
Take action today and write to Eastwood Park prison Governor Zoe Short, to demand Leona has all her money reinstated and to stop the involvement of Prevent officer Simon Biggs.
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Dear Zoe Short,
I am writing as a concerned member of the public in relation to one of the Filton18 political prisoners, Leona Kamio. Ms Kamio, an unconvicted prisoner, has been subject to a series of grave restrictions of her fundamental rights and civil liberties. I am writing to demand these rights be reinstated immediately.
She has been repeatedly denied the money that's been sent to her by family and friends over the last six weeks, and as a result, she has been prohibited from calling her loved ones during this period.
What makes all this even more concerning, is that Ms Kamio has been receiving regular visits from a counter terrorism officer called Simon Biggs, seemingly a Prevent officer. It is only after his visits that things became increasingly worse for Ms Kamio. When her mother, concerned for her daughter's wellbeing and treatment, inquired about these new and unexplained restrictions, she was informed that internal prison security staff had passed her complaint onto Mr Biggs, who was the apparent final decision maker.
The impact of this Prevent officer’s intervention has been:<br>
- Restricting Ms Kamio’s ability to contact family and friends via the Prison Voicemail app - a service that is listed on the prison’s website, yet Ms Kamio has been told falsely that it is a security risk to use this app.
- Denying Ms Kamio’s right to work whilst in prison; she had a gardening job whilst at HMP Bronzefield and immediately applied for it when she was transferred to Eastwood Park. She was told by security staff that it was too high risk due to the gardening taking place outdoors, when pressed about this - they could not adequately justify why she was being denied the job as there are established alternative arrangements which mean she wouldn’t be required to go outside the grounds.
- The restrictions placed on Ms Kamio’s access to her funds by placing them all in a savings account inaccessible to her currently. She has only received one payment of £50 recently, and the remaining £250 sent to her to aid her wellbeing has been entirely withheld from her, without just cause or explanation, over a period of 6 weeks. The impact of this decision has caused distress and alarm as it has:
- Severely restricted Ms Kamio’s ability to contact her friends and family, her much needed support network as she continues her remand, via phone calls that are crucial to her mental health and wellbeing
- Meant that Ms Kamio is unable to make calls to her lawyer, thus severely hindering her ability to progress her legal case
- Gravely restricted her ability to utilise the canteen where she purchases vital foods necessary to supplement her diet that have not been provided for her by the prison, and the crucial vitamins needed to support the many deficiencies she has developed as a result of her incarceration without conviction Governor Morrow told Ms Kamio that there was a ‘nationwide security measure’ on money sent to a prisoner of a “large amount, over £60” which would need to be investigated. Despite there being no reports of such a measure being implemented anywhere else, Ms Kamio continues to be subject to an arbitrary and inscrutable decision making process that determines her wellbeing and physical and mental health.
This appears to be a meticulous and deliberate attempt to try and impact Ms Kamio’s mental health, by taking away access to the very things that were helping her whilst detained; namely access to her support network and her gardening job.
You confirmed in an email to Ms Kamio’s MP Dianne Abbott that Ms Kamio was “not under any High Security restrictions” and that no such restrictions existed at your prison, yet she has continued to be treated like a high risk prisoner, despite her being an unconvicted prisoner awaiting trial.
In order to move forward to rectify these rights violations, I expect Ms Kamio’s rights to be reinstated with immediate effect. I also expect that all external pressures and arbitrary decision making processes are removed, which includes Prevent and Mr Simon Biggs and his interventions.
Yours sincerely
(NAME)
