Skip navigation

Indymedia UK is a network of individuals, independent and alternative media activists and organisations, offering grassroots, non-corporate, non-commercial coverage of important social and political issues

VIctory! Temal family return home to Glasgow

The UNITY Centre | 02.08.2006 12:51 | Anti-racism | Migration | Repression

The Kurdish Temal family from Turkey returned to Glasgow last week after being dawn raided by an Immigration Enforcement team and the police. Thank you to everyone who helped get this family back to Glasgow.

Temal family safely back in Glasgow outside the Unity Centre
Temal family safely back in Glasgow outside the Unity Centre

The Unity Centre opened close to the Home Office Immigration Centre in Glasgow
The Unity Centre opened close to the Home Office Immigration Centre in Glasgow


Two weeks ago the Temal family were 'dawn raided' in their flat in Kennishead, Glasgow, by 12 police and Immigration Enforcement officers wearing body armour at 7am in the morning.

After being woken by having their front door broken open with a battering ram, Servat and Sarkine were seized and held in seperate rooms from each other and their children, Mozon, Cekdar and Rodi (aged 7,4 & 2.) Held by three or four police officers, they were not allowed to pack - immigration officers did this for them and the young children were not allowed to have any breakfast.

There then followed a nightmare journey lasting over 16 hours. After being taken to the Home Office Immigration Centre at Brand Street for two hours where they were searched, processed, photographed and fingerprinted, the family were taken by Home Office van with blacked out windows to England.

The family first went to Manchester Airport (where they were searched again) and then to Yarls Wood Detention Centre close to Heathrow arriving at 11.30pm, during which time the family were not allowed to contact anyone. The children were only allowed to use toilets three times - once in an army base and twice at police stations along the route. At one police station the family were made to walk a gauntlet of about 20 police officers standing either side of the corridor.

At Yarls Wood, Sarkine became extremely distressed but was not allowed to have her medicine from her property. At one point she collapsed at 9.30 in the morning and was told she could see the medical officer at 6.30 that evening.

Servat and his wife are Kurdish and were active in Hadep, a legal, pro-Kurdish party in Turkey that has had its headquarters repeatedly ransacked amd its members imprisoned, beaten and tortured. Both Servat and two of his brothers had been jailed for three years by the Turkish authorities for their political activity.

Last week the family were due to be removed to Germany where they had originally sought asylum until discovering their Servat's brother had been given British citizenship and was living in Scotland.

The family however had been detained due to Home Office incompetence as Sarkine's case for asylum in the UK was still ongoing. The family were released from detention and returned safely to Glasgow thanks to the actions of their lawyer and supporters at the Unity Centre and across the UK.

* * * * * * * * * * * * *
The Temal family are just one of many families helped by the Unity Centre since it opened in March this year. The Unity Centre is run completly by volunteers from both Scottish and asylum seeker communities. It does not recieve any funding apart from donations from supporters.

We are appealing for donations at the moment. If you wish to support the Unity centre finacially please send donations to us at the address below or make out a standing order to pay us a regular donation every month.

UNITY CENTRE STANDING ORDER FORM:

To the Bank Manager,
Your bank ………………………………….....
Your bank’s address …………………………………
………………………………………………...
Post-code…………………………

I would like to make a regular donation to the UNITY Centre from my account.

Your Account Number……………………..
Your Sort Code………………………

Please credit the Unity Centre account number 65206386 at The Co-Operative Bank
(08-92-99) with £ ............ every month / quarter / year (please delete) starting on ......................... …….2006 and continuing until further notice.

Signature........................................
Date......................

First Name................. Surname...............................
Address...............................................................…………………………………
Postcode..........................

(Please complete and send to your bank. This standing order can be cancelled at any time by informing your bank.)

Many thanks

The UNITY Centre
30 Ibrox Street
Glasgow
G51 1QA

0141 427 7992
theunitycentre [at] btconnect.com

The UNITY Centre


Comments

Hide the following 3 comments

Why make a donation?

03.08.2006 11:02

I make a donation every day to these in the form of tax! This is then given them in the form of social security and free housing. As do tax payers in Germany which is where this family as asylum seekers should by law be housed.

Paul


Why Donate

04.08.2006 13:18

Without the support provided by the Unity Centre, this family would have been wrongly deported. In the rush to reduce numbers of people on Home Office records, many more cases occur. Families have their homes invaded, parents are separated from their children and they are imprisoned.

Why?

How many more cases go unreported because there aren't enough ways to keep the victims in contact with their friends and supporters?

Your tax, Paul, pays for 15 anonymous thugs to break down the doors of a family's home and take them from their neighbourhood and imprison them hundreds of miles from the possibility of a friend's visit. It goes to companies like Asda because the food vouchers have to be spent to the penny, no change given. The family get a fraction of state benefit, flats that can't otherwise be let and minimal opportunites to contribute to their new community because they are forbidden from working for themselves.

A donation to the Unity Centre goes directly towards helping asylum seekers form communities, rebuild their lives and resist persecution stemming from the whims of the Home Office and its craven, tabloid-led agenda.

The question is, if you're on a wage and disagree with what you see in the Sun and Daily Mail, why would you NOT donate to this or the other hard-working refugee support organisations that need funding?

not paul


Family were released legally

05.08.2006 18:37

By law the Temal family should never have been have been put through the trauma of being dawn raided and detained - their case for asylum had not finished. This is why, by law, they were released on order from the courts.

Asylum seekers recieve only 70% of income support through the National Asylum Support Aervice (NASS). They are not allowed to work and are forced to live in housing provided by NASS wherever in the UK NASS decides they should live.

Many asylum seekers are housed by private companies set up five years ago to profit from this such as the Angel company. This company, whose sole director, Julia Davis, pays herself £1/2 million a year, was set up soley to house asylum seekers in flats privately rented, five eyars ago when the government introduced its policy of dispersing asylum seeker sto all over the UK.

Last summer Angel were investigated and found to have committed a whole number of scams. Angel get paid for the number of houses they register with NASS irregardless whether they are used to house asylum seekers, are habitable or whether Angel actually hold the lease for the property. Angel was also found to have been paid for housing asylum seekers and homeless people in the same properties whilst being paid two seperate amounts for providing accommodation from NASS and from local authorities.

Asylum seekers hould not be forced to live on NASS. They should be allowed to work and support their own families.

Money raised goes towards the up-keep of the UNITY Centre.

Unity


Links

Server Appeal Radio Page Video Page Indymedia Cinema Offline Newsheet