26Oct06 - Minister for Dawn Raids visits Scotland

Liam Byrne's Trip to Glasgow

Liam Byrne came to Glasgow today and received a warm welcome. Kind of. Here is a report from a participant, and from Glasgow Campaign to Welcome Refugees.

After a trip to the Parliament in Edinburgh, the Minister for Dawn Raids arrived at Glasgow City Chambers at 2:45. There was already a substantial crowd outside the front door when the two purple Merc people carriers pulled into the St. Vincent St entrance.

On arrival, our VIP was met with jeers and shouts of "No Dawn Raids" and "We belong to Glasgow," leaving him in no doubt as to his popularity amongst the victims of his government's vindictive policies. Whilst he was inside, people kept chanting and the crowd outside numbered around 70.

Around 3:30, the gates were opened and police forced a path through the crowd by shoving people. Some in the crowd complained about the rough treatment, one man was grabbed by the throat. The vans trundled off behind some cyclists enjoying the afternoon air.
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Protesters followed the Minister to the Home Office at Brand St, where the police presence was heavier and more aggressive. About 100 protesters sang, danced and chanted whilst the Minister met with staff inside. The "reforms" he announced today are bound to have raised their flagging morale, given that they consist of carrying on with the "fast-track" system recently introduced to no acclaim.
An attempt by Police to cause a diversion to allow the Minister to sneak away in the opposite direction caused the situation to descend into a melee as police over-reacted when protesters ran into the road and blocked the first car in the convoy. Despite their best attempts, protestors succeeded in bringing the car to a halt.
One over-zealous policeman, officer G116, was seen to push people to the ground, knock an elderly African woman to the ground then stand on her and attempted to snatch cameras from witnesses to his behaviour, described as "out of control".
Unfortunately, one asylum seeker was arrested after an empty plastic bottle was apparently thrown at the car. During his arrest, as he was panicking, our friend G116 chose to put him in a choke hold despite the man already being restrained by 3 other officers.
After the confusion, an ambulance had to be called for the lady knocked to the ground by G116. She appeared to be suffering from a panic attack brought on by the over-the-top, heavy-handed policing.

Despite the negative end to a day of determined protests, with Liam Byrne being dogged everywhere he went, today was overall a massive success showing the determination by asylum seekers and their Scottish friends and neighbours to resist the barbaric policies of the Home Office.

The man arrested was charged with resisting arrest and molesting police (!) and was released on bail the following day from Glasgow Sheriff Court much to the relief of his wife and friends who were deeply upset at his arrest and worried about his safety.
He has got some bruises, a ripped coat and marks around his throat - thanks to the violent way in which he was handled, especially by G116 but otherwise he is fine.
He's due back in court on 15th Feb.

If anyone has photo's, can be a witness or just wants to support the family please contact the UNITY Centre.
0141 427 7992

- - - - - - - - - - - Glasgow Campaign to Welcome Refugees Report
No Dawn Raids No Deportations

80 of us travelled through to Edinburgh early on Thursday morning. We had a short rally outside the Parliament and then went inside to conduct a press conference/public meeting in one of the large committee rooms. Thanks to Sandra White MSP and her office for their invaluable help in this.
Nearly a hundred of us crowded in to hear statements of support from 7 cross party MSPs.Bill Butler, and Patricia McNeill, Labour, whose constituency include the Kingsway flats,Sandra White and Linda Fabiana, SNP, Patrick Harvie, Greens, Colin Fox, Convener of the SSP, Tommy Sheridan, Solidarity.

There is not agreement among the MSPs about their attitude to Liam Byrne's new arrangements but their support is a great encouragement.Rev Ian Whyte represented Positive Action in Housing and spoke of the parallels with the fight 200 years ago against slavery.

Margaret Woods spoke for the Campaign and emphasised that the new fast tracking arrangements are not an improvement. Given the loaded nature of the hearings they are a fast track to deportation not to asylum. Also that this is not a special deal for Scotland, other regions will have the same set up. Scotland will not have control of its own asylum arrangements, it will simply administer Home Office policy locally. It is the local defence networks set up by friends and neighbours and refugees which have the power to make a difference.

Evelyn Louden, a local campaigner from Toryglen, asked why they had been given money to help integrate refugees with their community only to have the heart ripped out of it. Jean Donnachie spoke of the Kingsway residents determination not to have any more of their friends and neighbours dawn raided and deported.Last but not least Amal Azzutin of the Glasgow Girls spoke eloquently and passionately for refugees themselves.

TV cameras were there and the meeting was covered on the lunch-time and evening news. Several newspapers, including the Guardian, Herald and Scotsman had reporters in attendance who interviewed several of the participants. Margaret Woods had been interviewed and was on the BBC TV News the night before. Thanks to the Kingsway residents success in turning back the Home Office vans, dawn raids and deportations are big news.

We travelled back to Glasgow in time to demonstrate outside the City Chambers where Liam Byrne was meeting representatives of Glasgow City Council. About 100 of us chanting, effectively barricaded the exit for an hour so that the police had to call reinforcements to clear a way. They brought this Minister of Her Majesty's Government out in two large vans with blacked out windows so that the people he represents could not see him and he could not see the people he represents. But he heard us all right.

We punched the air and chanted, knowing we had let him know there is serious support for refugees in this country and growing anger at our Government's abusive and racist asylum policies. How dare they assume that ordinary British and Scottish people are all racists whose xenophobic instincts have to be pandered to. The fight back against their racist asylum policy is being led and organised by ordinary local people who have learned to value "their refugees" as neighbours and friends and whose best instinct is to show solidarity with them in their adversity.

A smaller number carried on to demonstrate further at the Home Office centre at Brand Street where unfortunately one of the asylum seekers was arrested. It is of paramount importance that asylum seekers, refugees and campaigners get together to discuss how to demonstrate effectively and robustly but making sure that asylum seekers, whose legal situation is very fragile and vulnerable, and refugees, against whom anti-terror laws and even trivial criminal charges are being used to deport them, are not put into danger.

Jock MorrisChairGCtWR

9Oct06 - early morning vigils to stop dawn raids

Across Glasgow just before sun-rise something new is happening. Early in the morning friends and neighbours are gathering outside tower blocks in their local communities to mount vigils against dawn raids on asylum seeker families living there.

Last week in the early morning gloom, 100 people gathered outside Block 50 in Kingsway Court and managed to stop a dawn raid by immigration officials because the family were not at home – they had joined everyone else outside on the vigil.

The next day when the Immigration Enforcement Team arrived to detain Ceb Cohan and his family, neighbours and friends gathered outside his tower block to support him and to protest making it much, much harder for the immigration officials and police to take the family away.

One week later this tactic is being repeated across the city, in Kingsway, Cardonald, and Red Road, families have been coming together between 5.45 and 8.00 am to protect each other against the dawn raids. And Scottish neighbours and friends are joining in.

Instead of having to deal with just one family the police and dawn raid team find they now have to deal with maybe as many 150 people, meaning they need more police and they are met with protests rather than being able to sneak off with the family in their blue vans.

Already there are many political problems for the Home Office in Scotland. Today an emergency meeting is being held between the Home Office and the Scottish Executive to try and come up with a way of making the dawn raids more humane.

Whether this will work remains to be seen. But we too can make problems for the Home Office by joining together early in the morning for peaceful protests against the dawn raids.

UNITY are calling for all asylum seekers in Glasgow to copy what has been happening.

• Talk with your neighbours and friends and arrange to meet with them outside your home between 5.45 and 8.00 in the morning.
• If the dawn raid vans arrive – find out where they are going and warn everyone you know
• Make a peaceful protest
• Call UNITY immediately on 0141 427 7992

Please make sure to keep together and keep SAFE! You will not be arrested by the police if you are making a protest about the dawn raid but if you try to stop the dawn raid or if you make too much noise or if you do anything that frightens anyone you may be arrested by the police and this could cause problems for your case.

7Oct06 - Day of action reports

October 7 saw many decentralised, coordinated migration-related actions and events across the world.

From Warsaw to London, from Hamburg to Nouakchott, thousands of migrants and their supporters protested against the denial of their rights, against the criminalisation and scapegoating of refugees and, above all, against all immigration controls. They were demanding a European unconditional legalisation and equal rights for all migrants; the closure of all detention centres in Europe and everywhere; an end to all deportations and the 'border externalisation' process.

For a round up of events across Europe on indymedia, go to: http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2006/10/352902.html

Report on march and rally in Glasgow:

Several hundred people converged on Glasgow's George Square on Saturday for a march and Rally organised by Unity the Union of Asylum Seekers as part of the 3rd International Day of Action for Migrant Rights.

Marchers set off from points North, West and South of the city centre, numbering several hundred by the time they reached George Square. Asylum seekers were joined by people from across Glasgow and beyond who wanted to show their solidarity at the end of a particularly brutal week (even by Home Office standards).

Addressing the rally, Rosie Kane MSP called for Glaswegians to make the place a City of Compassion and Sanctuary. A common theme in the speeches was the need for solidarity between native-born Glaswegians and their (relatively) new neighbours. Graham Campbell of Solidarity called for people to support the work of the Unity Union of Asylum Seekers, organisers of the event. A speaker from the No Borders Network thanked asylum seekers for rekindling Glasgow's spirit of direct action in resistance to State persecution.

But as ever with these events, it was the refugees' and asylum seekers' voices that had the most vital contributions to make. Pastor Daly, no stranger to the inside of a detention centre, made a fiery speech that lost no power in its translation from French. We want to live, we want to work. This is not a speaker that any government would like to have opposing it.

Mama Henriette of Karibu African Women's Group reminded us of the government's role in creating refugees and its hypocrisy in dealing with them. "Asylum is a gambling game, all about numbers," and welfare is not on the agenda. Given that, we shouldn't talk about "failed" asylum seekers: people are Refused asylum by a system that isn't interested in fairness or justice.

The rally finished with a performance by local / international hip-hop crew Fugees United. A mixed group of fans danced and chanted "I don't give a damn what you call me." The energy and determination to resist government attacks on communities in Glasgow is there and here are talented people who want to contribute to this city they are making their home. John Reid would do well to note, "The Worse He Gets, the Stronger We Become"

more pictures at www.citystrolls.com

4Oct06 - Unity against dawn raids

This week saw asylum seekers and Scottish residents with nothing left to lose, coming out and protesting against the regime of fear the home office is imposing on them.
This morning another of Glasgow’s asylum seeking families was brutally dawn raided. The Coban family who are Kurdish Turkish and have lived in Tarfside Oval in Cardonald for over 5 years were woken and dragged from their beds.

Their son attends Cardonald’s Lourdes Primary School. He said afterwards that he was sad and upset at what had happened and what he had seen.

During the dawn raid a home office snatch squad forced their way into the family flat but Cem Coban broke free, ran out to the balcony on the 20th floor and threatened to throw himself off.

There was then a stand off as the Home Office snatch quad withdrew and Strathclyde police took over. Friends, neighbours and people from asylum seeking communities from around Glasgow and campaigners gathered. They chanted in support of the family and begged police and home office to leave them alone. Both asylum seekers and Scottish citizens in the local community were resolute in their determination that dawn raids must be stopped. They spoke of the terrorisation of their children and their fear of seeing them dragged from their beds mid sleep by home office officials. “If it can happen to the Coban family it can happen to us. Enough is enough.” Said one mother who is also an asylum seeker.

Mr Coban was terrified of being dawn raided and had made his way to the Kingsway flats the night before to support that community in their resistance to dawn raids and to learn from them. One neighbour who had been a victim of dawn raids by a military dictatorship in his own country commented that “I knew it was bad in my home country but I didn’t think in Scotland they did this to families”.

After five hours, Mr Coban decided to come in from the balcony and hand himself to the police, who arrested him for committing a breach of the peace. The demonstrators downstairs feared that he was being taken to Dungavel and lived up to their words not to allow this by blocking the path of the police van he was inside.

There was a five minute stand off after police were not able to move protestors who had sat down in front of their van. Eventually the police van reversed around the block of flats to where another van was waiting. The protestors saw this and ran round with police following, to block the path of this van as well. When the police caught up they began to push men women and children to the ground to allow the van to eventually leave. During this one woman collapsed and had to be taken in an ambulance to hospital.

Protestors said that if the police had came down and explained to them that Mr Coban was not being taken to Dungavel, this situation might not have happened.

Mrs Coban was later taken by ambulance to a hospital. Mr Coban was taken to Helen Street police station where he was charged. He will appear in court tomorrow.

3Oct06 - Community action stops dawn raid

Campaigners claim victory against dawn raid
Immigration officials were stopped from removing failed asylum seekers this morning as protestors barricaded the entrance to a block of flats in Glasgow. The demonstration was prompted by yesterday's removal of a mother and her two daughters, originally from the Democratic Republic of Congo, who have been taken to Dungavel Detention Centre.

Just before five this morning residents of the Kingsway estate began gathering to make their point. Yesterday's forced removal of a mother and her two children by immigration services in a dawn raid was met with outrage in the community and locals were determined to ensure there was no repeat.

The early morning peace was shattered, however, as immigration officials returned to carry another raid. Tensions were running high but eventually the flashpoint reached a satisfying conclusion for the crowd of around 90 protestors. With their intended targets seemingly not at home, immigration officials left without detaining anyone. Later it emerged that the family was out on the streets at the protest when the snatch squad came calling with their battering ram.

2Oct06 - State attacks on refugee women

Below is the testimony of a young woman, Caritas Sony. Please read this testimony of a young woman and her babies, and the suffering they have experienced at the hands of the state. It is the kind of story that Immigration Judges routinely throw out as unbelievable, but it is sadly true. Please read this testimony and act.

Every day, in Immigration Courts in Britain, women like Caritas are forced to go over their experiences again, trying to persuade officials to give them sanctuary. Telling again of the time that the state forces came, smashing down the door before dawn. How the children were snatched from her breast, bundled in a van, how she cried and cried, fearing she would never see them again. And every day Immigration Judges throw out cases like these - that sort of attack doesn’t happen to women like you in a country like that, they say. Case dismissed.

But that sort of attack does happen, and this one happened in a Glasgow high rise. Children were torn from their mother by British state forces.

Please read this testimony. Please read of how this is only the latest state attack on this young woman. But this attack was carried out by your government, in your name, on your behalf.

Another dawn raid in Glasgow. It’s happening every day now. Please don’t let this government think it can carry on with this violence in our names. Please raise your voice and demand an end to these violent attacks on our communities. Contact the Unity Centre in Glasgow for details of how you can get involved in the resistance. See www.unitycentreglasgow.org for details.

Thanks to Positive Action for putting this out. This is getting serious. Scotland’s refugee communities are under attack. We have to act.

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from Positive Action in Housing

TESTIMONY OF CARITAS SONY, 24 YEARS OLD, AND 2 BABIES AFTER DAWN RAID ON HER HOME AT KINGSWAY, SCOTSTOUN, GLASGOW

Churches, charities, schoolteachers, neighbours have condemned the treatment of 24 year old Caritas Sony who was brutally removed from her home of two years in Kingsway Court (Block 50, Flat 2/2) in a dawn raid by immigration officials this morning, Monday 2 October 2006. This is the latest in a series of several dawn raids on innocent families in Kingsway, Scotstoun and highlights the continuing brutality of the home office’s asylum policy on Scottish soil.

Dawn raid
Between 6 and 7 am this morning, Monday 2 October 2006, Caritas Sony, 24 years old, and her two children, Heaven (son), 2 Years old and Glad, (daughter), 4 Months old, were woken by around 10 immigration officials who broke down her door with a metal battering ram.

She was then handcuffed while her children were distressed in the bedroom, her two-year old was screaming for her. She asked to see her children and calm them down but immigration refused. Other immigration officers took her children away from her; both children were very distressed and cold. The officers did not put warm clothing on the children despite caritas’ request. They took the mother out first and placed her in a caged van, and then the two children were taken separately in a different vehicle in a very distressed state.

The family was taken into brand street home office. They wanted to look in her bag, she refused it, but they took her bag anyway and searched her documents. Then they searched her body and the children’s bodies too.

Dungavel
Immigration officials took Caritas and her children to another van. During the journey her two year old fell from the baby seat and screamed, she had to plead for immigration to put him back into the seat. She was too terrified to help her own child because she was warned by immigration officials not to touch her own children, or hold him to comfort him or keep him safe. Caritas hasn’t eaten or drunk anything. She said she would rather die here than go back to the Congo where she fears she will be killed as soon as she returns. There is no baby food for her 4 month old child, while her 2 year old has been eating only yoghurt. She is in a room with no other women and has been crying most of the day. There are 5 other empty beds in the room. Caritas’ baby needs SMA Gold baby milk, yet the only milk available in dungavel is for babies of six months or older. Caritas tried to breast feed the baby but because she herself can’t eat she cannot produce breast milk.

Why she left
Caritas fled Congo after her father, a politician, disappeared in 2001 and his body was never found. They were the all arrested. Then her mother was executed in front of Caritas in prison November 2003. In prison, her brother was ordered to rape her, he refused and was then executed in January 2004. Caritas was kept in prison where she was repeatedly raped and tortured. Her two year old son is the child of one of the men that raped her. She cannot count the number of times she was raped. Caritas managed to escape prison and she arrived as an asylum seeker in Glasgow in February 2004. Both her two children were born here. Caritas’s 19 year old sister was put in a different cell when the family were arrested. She never saw her again. In summer 2005, Caritas received the death certificate for her sister. Caritas has a twin sister who was not arrested and she understands fled the country for somewhere in Europe, Caritas does not know where.

Speaking from Dungavel, Caritas Sony said:
“I cannot go back to Congo because I went to prison and I know that if I return back there I will be killed, I want to fight for my children, I know that in Congo they will kill me because they don’t want any evidence left and I am the last piece of evidence. I cannot tell you how much it tears my heart to see my baby starving without the milk that she needs, or to see my two year old so crying and unable to eat, my children are restless; we have been put away like criminals. I came here to seek refuge and I feel like me and my children’s lives have the worth of nothing.”

Robina Qureshi, Director, Positive Action in Housing, said:
“The inhumanities of dawn raids have not stopped. A young woman was handcuffed in front her children without any regard to their psychological welfare. She was REFUSED PERMISSION to go to them when they were crying. She was FORBIDDEN from helping her two year old son when he fell from AN IMPROPERLY FASTENED baby seat. She was then given formula milk for babies 6 months and upwards instead of the proper prescription formula for a four month old, thereby putting her child in danger. According to Caritas, both her children has not been properly fed in dungavel since this morning.

This family’s treatment highlights yet again that absolutely nothing has changed regarding current policy of dawn raids. There are no safeguards to stop this inhumane treatment. There is no protocol to protect them. They are being treated worse than animals under the pretext of a ‘reserved asylum policy’.

“It is all very well for us as a country to complain about the human rights abuses going on abroad, and Congo DRC has many. What is shameful and disgusting is that the UK is prepared to allow this young woman to be further tortured by an asylum policy designed to force her back to the country she desperately fled. The worst shame of all is a Scottish government that is prepared to turn a blind eye to the inhumanities practiced by a Westminster run Home Office on Scottish soil as if it never happened in the first place. It did happen. It is happening. And we simply ask the Executive to intervene to stop any more inhumanities against children and their families.

“Enough is enough. We are calling on members of the Scottish public to write to their MSP, their MP, and the First minister and demand an end to any more dawn raids on Scottish soil, and an amnesty for Scottish asylum families so communities are no longer terrorised and school kids don’t have to be terrified by the disappearance of their school friends overnight without even so much as a goodbye.”

Caritas and her children are currently in Dungavel Detention centre and will be transferred to Yarlswood tomorrow, then due to be deported on Wednesday.