Alex Miller
On November 21, police arrested Scottish Socialist Party (SSP) member of the Scottish parliament Tommy Sheridan after a peaceful direct action that prevented British immigration officials from carrying out dawn raids on refugees' homes. Sheridan was arrested for breach of the peace at the Brand Street office of the UK immigration service in Glasgow and held in police custody overnight.
According to a November 22 BBC News Online report, "The demonstrators blocked the gates through which they said the vans which carry out the dawn raids have been leaving and entering". In a statement on its website on November 22, the SSP said, "Protesters who witnessed the arrest said that it was completely unnecessary and questioned why Sheridan had been picked out for arrest given that he was only one of approximately 40 people who had attended the event including [Birmingham Six member] Paddy Hill and a Church of Scotland minister".
In recent months several refugee families have been deported or put in detention by Home Office immigration officials. "People are being removed from their homes in disgraceful dawn raids with children being dragged out of bed in their night clothes and deported", Sheridan said. "I as an ordinary human being think that is unacceptable in the 21st century and we're calling for a more humane immigration service at the very least. We are hopefully going to stop any dawn raids today — that's what our target is."
An anonymous Home Office spokesperson conceded that the protest had temporarily forced the closure of the immigration office. The spokesperson told the BBC, "Behaviour such as this will not prevent the government from continuing to enforce its firm but fair asylum policy in Scotland and across the UK. Early morning visits are aimed at catching whole families together and are carried out as sensitively as possible."
Sheridan told the BBC that recent dawn raids involved families who had lived in Scotland for five years and who considered themselves Scottish. He added, "These youngsters want to stay in this country and help Scotland develop as a nation of multiculturalism and I think that's something that should be welcomed and supported".
For more information, visit <http://www.scottishsocialistparty.org>
From Green Left Weekly, November 30, 2005.
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