A march in rally in Glasgow city centre against racist deportations will have added anger and sadness this Saturday. The protest was called by school-friends and neighbours of the Vucaj family, imprisoned 2 weeks ago, deported today.
1. Update from Positive Action in Housing
2. Press release from Glasgow Campaign to Welcome Refugees
3. Anti-deportation links
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1. Update from Positive Action In Housing, a Scottish anti-racist organisation:
(see
http://www.paih.org for background info)
Thursday 29 September 2005 - 11 am
VUCAJ FAMILY DEPORTED TODAY
Protest to take place in George Square Saturday 1st October, 2005 at 11 am
Further info: 07773321727
We understand the Vucaj Family has been deported on the 10 am flight to Kosovo from London Stanstead. The last we heard of the family was at 4.21 am. See below. Yarls Wood has wiped the family's details from its database as removed.
Robina Qureshi, Director of Positive Action Housing, said:
"At 4.21 am this morning, I was woken in the night,13 year old Saida Vucaj phoned me weeping and exhausted. She said they woke her and her family and told them to get dressed because they are taking her and her family back to ‘our country’ - and then the line went dead. I called back but the very friendly switchboard person told me he could not put me through until after seven am. ‘But they will be gone by then, please put me through’ I said. Sorry, he said, no can do. Phone after seven pm.
Now I’m the one who is upset. Worse than that I’m a fool because I believed that someone somewhere in a position of power would be able to help this family who have been Glasgow residents for five years, law abiding and honest. I was fool enough to think that children and photographs and lobbying and a visit to the first minister only seven days ago might change hearts, might win some form of reprieve. Instead, the family are being woken at dawn – yet again, so nothing’s changed there - and being ‘sent back’ to Kosovo or Albania taking with them the clothes on their back and their Glasgow accents.
I am disgusted by this calculated, unremitting barbarity known as the UK asylum & immigration policy. I feel ashamed of this country, that shame knows no depths, this calculated, unremitting barbarism that has broken that little girl’s heart will haunt this country for generations to come. I cannot express enough how disgusted and heartbroken I am for Saida Vucaj and her family, and all the other families waiting years and years and then suddenly picked up Nazi style to be deported. Disgusted."
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
2. Glasgow Campaign to Welcome Refugees press release
(before news of Vucaj family deportation broke)
Demonstration and rally:
AGAINST DEPORTATIONS
Saturday 1st October 2005, meet at 11.00am at
George Square then to St Enoch Square, Glasgow
Rally at 12 noon at St Enoch Square
End dawn raids on families End detention End deportation
Across Glasgow, refugee families are living in fear. Either they will be arrested at Brand Street (the Home Office) when they go to sign in, or they will be awakened between 5am and 7am one morning, given 5 minutes to pack and then after the father is handcuffed, split up from each other and put into vans by security staff. Sometimes they are not even allowed to phone friends. Then driven to a detention centre in England to await deportation.
Their destination will be a country in some sort of turmoil, often a war zone or a police state where imprisonment without trial, torture and execution are rife: a country from which they have fled in fear, leaving everything behind to seek safety and asylum in Britain.
Often these refugees have spent 4 or 5 years here. The children think of themselves as Scottish and speak “Glaswegian”. They are part of our community here. When their friends find out they are gone, they are also traumatised.
Scotland has a declining population and refugees are a vital part of this country’s future. Yet Jack McConnell is unable and unwilling to challenge Home Office policy, talking merely of “more sensitivity”. Meanwhile the Vucaj family remains in Yarlswood facing an uncertain future and Olusola Popoola, who attempted suicide in Dungavel rather than be parted from his family and has now been removed to Colebrooke high security removal centre.
We demand an immediate end to dawn arrests, to detention and to deportations.
Speakers will include: Sandra White SNP MSP; Patrick Harvie Green MSP; Tommy Sheridan SSP MSP; Kenny Ross Scottish regional sec’y of the Fire Brigade Union; Robina Qureshi PAIH and Aamer Anwar human rights lawyer.
Also a number of community and refugee campaigners and Scottish school friends of those recently removed will speak.
From: Glasgow Campaign to Welcome Refugees
Contact: Margaret Woods - 07870 286 632
glascamref@hotmail.com
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
3. Links
Earlier story on IMC:
http://indymedia.org.uk/en/2005/09/324538.html
Positive Action in Housing
http://www.paih.org
National Coalition of Anti-Deportation Campaigns:
http://www.ncadc.org.uk
Schools Against Deportations
http://www.schoolsagainstdeportations.org
No Border Network
http://www.noborder.org
No In Is Illegal
http://www.noii.org.uk
Detention movie
http://www.camcorderguerillas.net/dungavel.htm
Map of European Detention Centres (pdf)
http://pajol.eu.org/IMG/pdf/camps-en.pdf
2. Press release from Glasgow Campaign to Welcome Refugees
3. Anti-deportation links
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
1. Update from Positive Action In Housing, a Scottish anti-racist organisation:
(see
http://www.paih.org for background info) Thursday 29 September 2005 - 11 am
VUCAJ FAMILY DEPORTED TODAY
Protest to take place in George Square Saturday 1st October, 2005 at 11 am
Further info: 07773321727
We understand the Vucaj Family has been deported on the 10 am flight to Kosovo from London Stanstead. The last we heard of the family was at 4.21 am. See below. Yarls Wood has wiped the family's details from its database as removed.
Robina Qureshi, Director of Positive Action Housing, said:
"At 4.21 am this morning, I was woken in the night,13 year old Saida Vucaj phoned me weeping and exhausted. She said they woke her and her family and told them to get dressed because they are taking her and her family back to ‘our country’ - and then the line went dead. I called back but the very friendly switchboard person told me he could not put me through until after seven am. ‘But they will be gone by then, please put me through’ I said. Sorry, he said, no can do. Phone after seven pm.
Now I’m the one who is upset. Worse than that I’m a fool because I believed that someone somewhere in a position of power would be able to help this family who have been Glasgow residents for five years, law abiding and honest. I was fool enough to think that children and photographs and lobbying and a visit to the first minister only seven days ago might change hearts, might win some form of reprieve. Instead, the family are being woken at dawn – yet again, so nothing’s changed there - and being ‘sent back’ to Kosovo or Albania taking with them the clothes on their back and their Glasgow accents.
I am disgusted by this calculated, unremitting barbarity known as the UK asylum & immigration policy. I feel ashamed of this country, that shame knows no depths, this calculated, unremitting barbarism that has broken that little girl’s heart will haunt this country for generations to come. I cannot express enough how disgusted and heartbroken I am for Saida Vucaj and her family, and all the other families waiting years and years and then suddenly picked up Nazi style to be deported. Disgusted."
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
2. Glasgow Campaign to Welcome Refugees press release
(before news of Vucaj family deportation broke)
Demonstration and rally:
AGAINST DEPORTATIONS
Saturday 1st October 2005, meet at 11.00am at
George Square then to St Enoch Square, Glasgow
Rally at 12 noon at St Enoch Square
End dawn raids on families End detention End deportation
Across Glasgow, refugee families are living in fear. Either they will be arrested at Brand Street (the Home Office) when they go to sign in, or they will be awakened between 5am and 7am one morning, given 5 minutes to pack and then after the father is handcuffed, split up from each other and put into vans by security staff. Sometimes they are not even allowed to phone friends. Then driven to a detention centre in England to await deportation.
Their destination will be a country in some sort of turmoil, often a war zone or a police state where imprisonment without trial, torture and execution are rife: a country from which they have fled in fear, leaving everything behind to seek safety and asylum in Britain.
Often these refugees have spent 4 or 5 years here. The children think of themselves as Scottish and speak “Glaswegian”. They are part of our community here. When their friends find out they are gone, they are also traumatised.
Scotland has a declining population and refugees are a vital part of this country’s future. Yet Jack McConnell is unable and unwilling to challenge Home Office policy, talking merely of “more sensitivity”. Meanwhile the Vucaj family remains in Yarlswood facing an uncertain future and Olusola Popoola, who attempted suicide in Dungavel rather than be parted from his family and has now been removed to Colebrooke high security removal centre.
We demand an immediate end to dawn arrests, to detention and to deportations.
Speakers will include: Sandra White SNP MSP; Patrick Harvie Green MSP; Tommy Sheridan SSP MSP; Kenny Ross Scottish regional sec’y of the Fire Brigade Union; Robina Qureshi PAIH and Aamer Anwar human rights lawyer.
Also a number of community and refugee campaigners and Scottish school friends of those recently removed will speak.
From: Glasgow Campaign to Welcome Refugees
Contact: Margaret Woods - 07870 286 632
glascamref@hotmail.com ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
3. Links
Earlier story on IMC:
http://indymedia.org.uk/en/2005/09/324538.html Positive Action in Housing
http://www.paih.org National Coalition of Anti-Deportation Campaigns:
http://www.ncadc.org.uk Schools Against Deportations
http://www.schoolsagainstdeportations.org No Border Network
http://www.noborder.org No In Is Illegal
http://www.noii.org.uk Detention movie
http://www.camcorderguerillas.net/dungavel.htm Map of European Detention Centres (pdf)
http://pajol.eu.org/IMG/pdf/camps-en.pdf 
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Letter from Saida Vucaj, 13 years old, Wednesday 28th September 2005
30.09.2005 03:16
Glasgow Resident for 5 years
Written while held at Yarls Wood Detention Centre, Day 15
"I don't know what's gonna happen tomorrow, we might come back to Glasgow or we might go to another [detention] camp for interview. I don't knowŠ but one of them's gonna happen tomorrow. I'll be pure, pure, pure excited if they pick for us to go back to Glasgow.
"Life in camp every single day is becoming more boring. It is. I'm here three weeks and it's like brain damage, because you're trapped inside.
"It feels like I've done something wrong to be in a prison. I can't hardly eat, only once a day, because, honest, I'm very, very depressed.
"My mum's depressed, crying, in bed all day, but she's hanging there. I'm not joking, I'm scared if my mum get's sick, she was already sick with worrying about our case in Glasgow for five years. My dad, he is the same as my mum, very depressed. His eyes are red, his head is pure thumping. But we just have to hang on there, keep strong.
"When they came [referring to dawn raid] I just jumped up, thinking what are these four people doing in my room, I was dead scared, you know, I was not thinking, all my good clothes are in my house, I forgot, I left my new clothes and took my old ones, just tired, never expected it, they just said get up, I was shaking, I was tired, I wanted my mum. My mum was crying in the other room butŠ Here, my mum says I get scared in the middle of the night, I wake and scream some nights around 4.30 am every night and my mum says are you okay? As soon as I wake up I can't remember why I'm scared, but I feel scared.
"I heard about my girls meeting the First Minister. Is he helping? I haven't been to the Scottish Parliament, but I could go one day. Have you been there?
"If I saw the First minister, I would just say: 'Hi, how you doing? I hope you and your family is very well. And if you help me and my family, I would thank you so much'.
"How could I forget life in Glasgow. I love my Glasgow, I remember going shopping with my friends, having fun, listening to music in my own room, not worrying, having my own space.
"If we come back to Glasgow, I want to finish the book, the ragged boy, with our teacher Mr Turnball, anyway I'm writing my own book now, in here, I don't know how my book finishes, but I'll see tomorrow what's gonna happen".
Saida Vucaj,
witness