Thistle star to kick off refugee week

The Herald Focus

HE has only played 15 minutes of first-team football but Pedram Ardallany has already had a wee taste of the star treatment. “I was on the bus going back to Sighthill after a game and these fans saw me,” the Partick Thistle midfielder explained yesterday. “They asked me where my BMW was.”

The 18-year-old had just been introduced to the crowd at Firhill as the first Iranian to pull on a red, yellow and black shirt, for a 1-0 victory over Stirling Albion. Next season he hopes to get more games for the Jags. But, despite his Persian roots, the country he wants to play for is Scotland. “I wish,” he said, hesitantly. “Hopefully.”

Pedram and his father came to Glasgow at 15, fleeing his native Tehran – and a promising place as a youth player at Saipa, one of the city’s major clubs. He doesn’t want to say why. He doesn’t need to: his status as a refugee is long confirmed.

“Refugees don’t choose to leave their country,” he said. “We are forced to do so for reasons beyond our control.”

Now the player, known simply as “Ped” at Firhill, has, almost inevitably, been asked to kick off Scottish Refugee Week, which takes place next month to celebrate the contribution made to Scotland, its culture and sport, by those forced to make their home here.

“Football has been a great way for me to integrate into Scottish life,” he said. “It is a universal language that people speak all over the world, no matter where they come from. I admire the Scots’ passion for football and am grateful for the welcome they have given me.”

Refugee Week promises to be bigger and better as the first refugees and asylum seekers who came to Glasgow at the turn of the millennium firmly embed themselves in the fabric of the city. There are now around 6000 refugees and 4000 asylum seekers in the country, most in the west, their numbers almost negligible compared with the waves of mass migration from Poland.

Many of the men, women and children who first arrived in Glasgow seven or eight years ago – some disorientated, more traumatised – are now giving something back.

Next month’s events are part of that, designed as much for indigenous Scots as for those who have sought safety in their midst. Refugee Week will include a five-a-side tournament bringing together the best of local and refugee talents.

Pedram, after all, isn’t the only rising star of football to have made his way to Scotland to flee persecution.

Rangers and Celtic both have young signings from the refugee community, from Somalia, Ivory Coast and Cameroon. None of them, however, has the powers to pull a crowd more than Oussama Rebika.

The 22-year-old, originally from Algeria but with all the patter of a Barras sports socks vendor, is the spitting image of Christiano Ronaldo.

Oussama – “Sam” to his friends – was along watching his friend Pedram do keepie-uppies for the cameras yesterday – and being teased for missing that Champions League penalty in Moscow last week. “Aye, but I have had a good season,” he retorted.

Oussama and Pedram are both looking forward to Refugee Week: 70,000 people attended its events last year and more are expected this time round.

John Wilkes, chief executive of the Scottish Refugee Council, said: “For many years, refugees have been seeking sanctuary in Scotland, enriching our communities, contributing to our sports and culture, society and economy. Refugee Week Scotland is an acknowledgement of that.

“But Refugee Week is not just for refugees. It is for everyone in Scotland, an opportunity for us all to celebrate what we have in common and understand and respect our differences.”

The number of people applying for asylum in the UK is falling. There are just 30 applications a week in Glasgow, mostly from Iran, Iraq and Eritrea. Overall, British numbers are down around 75% from 1999, despite a world-wide increase in displaced populations.

Mr Wilkes, speaking as police tried to identify two stowaways found dead on a cargo ship in Ayr, warned tougher border regimes were not necessarily working: people still want to come to the UK, even if they risk their lives doing so.

Partick Thistle, meanwhile, reckon Pedram – a real prospect for the team – is bringing them new fans.

“It doesn’t matter where he is from. It matters that he is a real prospect on the field,” said the club’s Stuart MacPhee.

“He’s a great lad and really impressed on his debut. He is doing well. He is making a place for himself.

“We are saying to people up in Sighthill: Come along and Support him.’”

DAVID LEASK

Partick Thistle’s refugee rookie Pedram Ardalany kicks off awareness week

Daily Record – 28th May 2008

A PARTICK Thistle player who fled Iran as a teenager helped launch Scotland’s Refugee Week yesterday.

Jags midfielder Pedram Ardalany, 18, insisted it was vital asylum seekers were welcomed with open arms.

He said: “Refugees don’t choose to leave their country – we are forced to do so for reasons beyond our control.

“Football has been a great way for me to integrate into Scottish life – it is a universal language that people speak all over the world.

“I admire the Scots’ passion for football and am grateful for the welcome they have given me here.

“I hope everyone will celebrate Refugee Week Scotland and share in the things we all enjoy.”

To mark the event, Pedram showed off his skills to a group of young refugees in Scotstoun, Glasgow.

SNP accused of betraying refugees

Return of dawn raids on asylum-seeking families prompts claims that Alex Salmond is neglecting their cause
SUNDAY HERALD
By Neil Mackay and Rachelle Money

THE RETURN of dawn raids on asylum seekers has provoked an angry attack on Alex Salmond and his SNP government for failing publicly to denounce the Westminster policy of seizing refugee families at their homes in the early hours of the morning and then detaining mothers, fathers and their children in immigration holding centres.

The SNP campaigned against dawn raids and detention of families in opposition, but in government, say their critics, their silence has been deafening.

The UK Border Agency said 750 immigrants had been forcibly removed from Scotland since the SNP came to power. This figure includes immigrants found working illegally, as well as those subjected to dawn raids. It does not include those who left voluntarily.

The agency added that the government was made aware of all dawn raids. “We don’t have to tell them, but we do let them know when it is happening,” a spokeswoman said.

A Sunday Herald investigation reveals that dawn raids are once again a fully-fledged tactic in Scotland despite much protest by the public and pressure groups.

Refugees, support groups and opposition MSPs have all called on the SNP to denounce the tactics and demand that Westminster cease such actions on Scottish soil. The Scottish government claims it has been raising the issue with Westminster behind closed doors. However, after learning of criticism directed at the SNP for its silence on dawn raids – as a result of the Sunday Herald investigation – senior nationalists said the party would shortly be issuing a public statement condemning the practice.

Scotland’s Children’s Commissioner Kathleen Marshall said she was worried that dawn raids and removals of children to detention centres were happening again in Scotland. She said she was in dialogue with the Border Agency over the tactics, adding: “There should be independent scrutiny of all such removals, which feed the climate of fear in which many children and families live.”

Zodwa Mbali speaks through her tears. Her story is horrific, a bleak life of pain and suffering. A victim of rape in South Africa, she was left HIV-positive and pregnant by her attacker. An illiterate single woman, she was an easy target for persecution and fled her home, seeking a new life in Scotland.

Earlier this month the Home Office decided that her time was up. Her home in Drumchapel in Glasgow was “dawn-raided’ by eight immigration officers. Mbali was dragged from her home with her six-year-old son Ameldo and taken to the Dungavel Immigration and Detention Centre. After a few days, she was driven to Yarlswood detention centre near Bedford.

Immigration officers move refugees from Scotland to England as soon as possible because of the anger the imprisoning of entire families has caused. Yarlswood has seen hunger strikes and mass protests, including an attempt to burn the building down.

After a week in custody in England, Mbali was taken to the train station, given a ticket for Glasgow and told to go back to Scotland. Officials added that she would be deported from country soon. “I am very very scared now,” she says. “I don’t know when they will throw me out. Life is very painful.”

The words that Mbali wants to say are directed at the SNP government. She wants to ask Alex Salmond and his ministers why they no longer seem eager to help her. In opposition, the SNP continually attacked the policy of dawn raids and the detention of families. Immigration is controlled by Westminster, and the SNP used dawn raids and the detention of children as a stick to beat the London administration and the Labour-controlled Scottish executive. Now, in government, however, the SNP appears to have ditched its high-profile public campaign for women like Mbali and her young son. The party has restricted its fight against dawn raids and child detention to behind-the-scenes talks with Gordon Brown’s government.

Another refugee living in Drumchapel, Bridget O’Koro from Nigeria, with her three-year-old daughter Osa, who was born in Britain, was taken by immigration officers to Yarlswood this month.

In Nigeria O’Koro, a Muslim, fell in love with a Christian man. Her father was the head of the Islamic Council, and he and other men beat her. “My father believed I had dishonoured the family. He threatened to kill me. My baby has never seen her father,” she said.

From her cell in Yarlswood, O’Koro called on the SNP to speak out on her behalf. “They must speak. If they do not. then they are just playing politics,” she said. “What has happened to us is not right. My daughter is terrified .”

Margaret Woods of the Glasgow Campaign to Welcome Refugees is troubled by the SNP’s apparent change. “I want the government to publicly condemn dawn raids as it did in opposition, and for it to make every effort to stop this practice,” she said. “If this was an issue worth discussing when votes were changing hands, it is worth discussing now. A year down the line, the SNP hasn’t managed to change much.”

A senior government source said: “The SNP in opposition and government has condemned dawn raids at every turn, and we will make that position clear until they are brought to an end. The cabinet secretary has raised the issue of dawn raids with the Home Office immigration minister, in person and in writing, as recently as this week.”