TWO men were charged with public disorder offences after a protest against plans to evict more than 300 asylum seekers from their homes.
Orgainsers said the demonstration included chaining the gates of the immigration reporting centre on Brand Street in Glasgow.
Police Scotland said officers were called out around noon yesterday. Two men, aged 45 and 58, were arrested. They were charged with minor public disorder offences before being released. Mohammad Asif, from the Scottish Afghan Society, said about 40 people took part in a “peaceful protest”.
He said: “We chained the gate as a symbolic gesture – if I lock you for one day, how do you feel for one hour? And then you are destroying their lives forever,” he said.
Two Afghan nationals, Rahman Shah, 32, and Mirwais Ahmadzai, 27, are staging a hunger strike outside the building.
Asif said they have had nothing to eat or drink since Wednesday. They were spoken to by paramedics who were called out during the protest.
The two men are among at least 300 asylum seekers facing eviction by contractor Serco after being refused refugee status.
The public services group, employed by the Home Office, revealed plans last weekend to begin changing the locks on accommodation.
The group said it has provided accommodation for months in some cases for those without the right to remain in the UK, without recompense from the Home Office and at a cost of more than £1 million a year, which it claimed should be borne by the local authority.
The leader of Glasgow City Council said the bill should be footed by the Home Office, and she repeated calls to Home Secretary Sajid Javid to step in and stop the evictions.
Susan Aitken also said the council’s lawyers are looking at ways to “supersede” UK law to those facing eviction.
She told BBC Scotland’s Good Morning Scotland radio programme the council is prohibited from providing accommodation for people who have exhausted the asylum process, but uses its general power of welfare to help particularly vulnerable groups such as families and those with HIV.
Aitken said she has instructed council lawyers to examine whether this can be extended to cover those who face having their locks changed by Serco, many of whom are young, single men.
Aitken said: “We need to look at it very carefully and we are looking at it very carefully to establish whether we can use our general power of wellbeing to supersede UK law and support a wider range of people who find themselves essentially being made destitute as a consequence of UK Government policy.”
Serco chief executive Rupert Soames has said lock-change notices would be given to no more than 10 people a week for the next four weeks.
He said none of these would be families with children and all will be people who the Home Office considers to have exhausted their appeal process and no longer have the right to remain.
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