ASYLUM experts have hit out at the Home Office after it refused to answer questions about shock dawn raids in Scotland.
The controversial practice has been slammed by everyone from human rights specialists to mental health charities and yesterday protestors gathered in Glasgow to oppose the return to the early-morning operations.
The George Square demonstration, which involved several asylum and refugee rights campaigns, came after a 67-year-old man with heart problems collapsed moments after being woken from his bed by immigration officials.
A small number of people gathered at Home Office premises in the city last weekend and since then a grassroots resistance campaign has gotten underway, with material urging the public to document and stop dawn raids has been circulating on social media.
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The man, a member of Maryhill Integration Network (MIN), had come to the UK four years ago to save his daughter from forced marriage threats from a criminal gang who also said they’d murder her family members.
MIN has learned that a similar operation may have taken place in January, with the subjects removed from the city. That’s according to members of the local asylum-seeking community.
But the Home Office has this week repeatedly refused to confirm or deny this – or provide any concrete information at all about its taxpayer-funded activities in the only Scottish city to host asylum seekers.
The Sunday National asked the department when it resumed dawn raids – thought to have ceased after the successful 2005 campaign by the young “Glasgow Girls” activists – why it did so and how many it has carried out.
A spokesperson declined to answer those questions, but said the Home Office does not “routinely comment on operational activity” and immigration enforcement teams are able to conduct “enforcement visits” from 6.30am “where there is good reason for doing so”.
In a statement, the department said: “Those who have no right to remain in the UK and do not return home voluntarily, should be in no doubt of our determination to remove them.
“Our immigration enforcement officers take the health and wellbeing of those in their care extremely seriously and a full risk assessment and consideration of any vulnerabilities is taken before any enforcement visit.
“The Government is bringing forward a New Plan for Immigration that is fair but firm, which will stop the abuse of the system and expedite the removal of those who have no right to be here.”
Pinar Aksu of MIN (above) – who is leading the campaign to oppose dawn raids – said: “It is really concerning to hear information about the practice of dawn raids is not clearly shared with us.
“As citizens, we have the right to know the impact of immigration policies on people and how our taxes are being used.
“I am deeply concerned about human rights of people seeking asylum and refuge and also our rights as citizens to know what really is happening. We need a fair and just system, based on rights, not numbers and unknowns.”
Scottish Refugee Council policy manager Graham O’Neill said: “There is no place for Home Office immigration enforcement raids in Scotland – least of all raids conducted in the early hours, where strangers burst into bedrooms, order people out of their homes and force people into cold vans consigned to detention. This behaviour turns peaceful lives and hopeful futures upside down, within minutes.
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“We are deeply concerned by the total lack of transparency surrounding this aggressive and intrusive behaviour by the Home Office.
“It is frustrating and alarming that the Home Office has not provided any further information on this practice, and the extent to which it may be continued in Glasgow. Dawn raids were resisted and stopped by Glasgow’s communities before, and the city can do so again. We support our partners working across the sector, and communities, who say loud and clear that Glasgow welcomes refugees and that dawn raids are not welcome in this city.”
Former Glasgow Girl Roza Salih, now an SNP candidate, called the recent raid “a total infringement of basic human rights”. Greens candidate Nadia Kanyange, also a former asylum seeker, also condemned the raid.
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