Emergency campaign from Black Womenâs Rape Action Project:Â A woman in Yarlâs Wood IRC has been put in solitary confinement for refusing to remove a t-shirt with the slogan: âWe want freedomâ.
Alice Wanja-Maina was ordered this morning to take off the T-shirt by officer James Brown who claimed that the Home Office had told Serco to stop women wearing the T-shirts because it âincitesâ them. Ms JS who witnessed the incident said that six guards surrounded Ms Wanja-Maina and she was videoed. When Ms Wanja-Maina was threatened with being taken to the punishment wing (Kingfisher) she took all her clothes off to protest. She had written âfreedomâ on her body too.
Ms Wanja-Maina remains in Kingfisher without her clothes, isolated and unable to contact anyone. She is likely being targeted because she has been outspoken in demanding her own release and against the injustice of vulnerable women being imprisoned indefinitely without charge or conviction.
Ms Wanja-Maina is a jailhouse lawyer who helps other women with their legal cases and is a point of contact for women to get copies of a Self-help Guide against Detention and Deportation by Legal Action for Women (LAW). Ms Wanja-Maina led protests when 90 of these guides were confiscated and with support from LAW and Black Womenâs Rape Action Project succeeded in forcing the Home Office to instruct Serco to return the guides. Is Ms Wanja-Maina being isolated in retaliation for Sercoâs humiliation. Ms Waja-Maina has also made a formal complaint about bullying and intimidating treatment from an officer.
Currently ten women are wearing freedom t-shirts in support of Ms Wanja-Maina and are demanding her immediate release.
Please write to protest to:
Norman Abusin
Manager
Yarlâs Wood IRC
By fax: 01234 821 096
The Home Office
By fax: 01234 271 349
Alok Sharma MP (Ms Wanja-Mainaâs MP) asking him to intervene to get Ms Wanja-Maina released from solitary confinement.
Email: alok.sharma.mp@parliament.uk Tel: 020 7219 7131  Tel: 0118 941 3803
Theresa May, Secretary of State for the Home Office
public.enquiries@homeoffice.gsi.gov.uk Tel: 020 7035 4848
Please cc anything you write to bwrap@rapeaction.net and law@allwomencount.net