On 31st May, Ana Heyatawin, 59, from Wells was sentenced to three months in prison for gluing herself to the dock while appearing at Stratford Magistrates’ Court on 26th April. Ana, Dr Diana Warner, 63 a retired GP from Bristol and Liam Norton, 37, an electrician and spokesperson for the Insulate Britain campaign disrupted a hearing, in which they were defendants, causing the sitting magistrates to leave and the session to stop.
Ana, who has already spent time in prison for her part in the Insulate Britain campaign and now into her fourth week in prison writes:
“I am in prison, for the second time serving a 3 month sentence for asking for action based on truth. Like many here, I am not a criminal, but just a person, asking those running the systems we live by for help.
I asked the government to make a statement on insulating social housing by 2025 – a statement! Their response is to imprison me, a 59 year old grandmother on disability benefits, living in a damp Housing Association flat. So far, I have been fined £6,000 with more to come, which the taxpayer will have to pay to smart lawyers and the government.
I am asking for basic health and safety rules to be enacted, to create thousands of jobs, reduce emissions significantly and save thousands of lives. There are 8,500 fuel poverty deaths on average each year in the UK, one of the richest countries in the world.
The government advice to prisons regarding release of prisoners, is to tell them the best places to sleep on the street, and how to keep warm using cardboard and newspaper.
I will not stop campaigning for our basic human rights, despite the gross injustice of the most recent public order bills, and no matter how I’m punished to be silent, the more I am suppressed, the louder I will become. My conditions are better in prison than at home.
We are resilient, intent and truth is on our side. Unfortunately the justice system, like all our systems, is broken at its heart. The richest and most powerful are careless of and with their public, concerned only with themselves. We are managed by psychotic narcissists with unscrupulous moral codes, whose only duty is to their own well – being. It is a travesty of justice.
Our tragedy is that our government knows the science of what’s to come. Their inaction will result in a genocide. So I say they are the criminals, and their betrayal of us, the people, is treasonable.
Who will hold them to account if not their people? Stand up, be brave, and join the fight to save our lives. We want to thrive, not just survive. NOW IS YOUR TIME.”
