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Robina Qureshi (born 1967 in Glasgow) is a Scottish human rights campaigner. She is Director of Positive Action in Housing , a charity set up to fight racism and discrimination, particularly against visible minorities, new migrants and refugee communities.
Background
Qureshi's parents came to Glasgow as immigrants in the 1960s, where they raised Qureshi and her six sisters in a two apartment Southside tenement. Her father was a bus conductor and then later a shop keeper.
Human rights work
Qureshi is a notable critic of the UK's asylum policies and has campaigned to close detention centres for asylum seekers. In September 2005, Qureshi travelled to Albania with a film crew on a "fact finding mission" after taking up the case of the Vucaj children. The children were expelled to Kosovo in two dawn separate raids after living in Glasgow for five years as asylum seekers.
Subsequently, she has been at the forefront of challenging dawn raids against Scotland's asylum seekers, taking part in protests at Home Office buildings with other high profile campaigners including Paddy Joe Hill of the Birmingham Six, Tommy Sheridan MSP, Sandra White MSP and actor Peter Mullan, now her partner. Qureshi described the practice of dawn raids as "inhumane, disgusting and barbaric". She further called on First Minister Jack McConnell "to instruct Strathclyde Police to arrest any immigration officers who carry out dawn raids" . The police, she added "surely must, despite doing the dirty work of the Home Office and the far right". Malcolm Chisholm MSP, Minister for Communities in the Scottish Executive, joined Qureshi in citicising the "heavy-handed" immigration policies, describing her as "a very formidable campaigner and completely dedicated to the housing and other rights of visible minorities."
In 2003, she led a campaign to close down Dungavel Immigration Removal Centre, in Scotland, where families from refugee communities are incarcerated. She also called for an amnesty for asylum seeking families in Scotland.
Qureshi has been a vocal critic of UK policies on civil liberties, comparing the UK Government's attitude towards the threat of homegrown Islamic extremist terrorism and the subsequent impact on the Muslim community to the experience of the Irish community in 1970s and 1980s Britain. She stated that, "it has been made very clear that the Muslim community should expect to be singled out as potential terrorists. People will feel they are being targeted, just like the British did to the Irish in the 1970s and innocent people went to jail. The difference is this time round the names will be Muslim, rather than Irish."
Between 1998 and 2000, Qureshi, together with human rights lawyer, Aamer Anwar, campaigned on behalf of the family of murdered Indian waiter Surjit Singh Chhokhar. She also served on the Lawrence Steering Group. She has led campaigns to stop extreme far right groups from organising or gaining a platform in Scotland and is opposed to the American and British invasion of Afghanistan and Iraq.
Early Influences
In June 2003, speaking to homelessness magazine, The Big Issue, Qureshi talked about her earliest childhood influences in the shape of Bob Dylan "From a very young age, I mean really young - listening to his music, but more his words, Bob Dylan taught me everything about life, love, injustice, and gave me a sense of freedom when I thought I was most locked into other people’s definitions of how my life was meant to be, be they my blood connections, the Muslim community or white society out there.”
Controversy
In November 2005, New Labour politician Tom Harris MP, criticised Positive Action in Housing's stance on dawn raids, claiming the charity went too far in urging direct action to stop failed asylum seekers being removed. Harris had called for funding to the charity to be withdrawn because they "provoke violence against immigration officers" and circulate "rumours and innuendo as fact". Qureshi robustly defended her charity's campaign, claiming they acted "extremely responsibly ... to end dawn raids" and that the charity has "never in our lifetime been anything other than cross party political."
On December 11, 2005, Respect MP George Galloway defended Qureshi in his regular column in the Mail on Sunday, claiming she was subjected to the "bully boys of New Labour" after having "spoken out of turn"
In July 2006, Qureshi was accused of verbally abusing News of the World columnist Anvar Khan in relation to the journalist's alleged relationship with former Scottish Socialist Party leader Tommy Sheridan. According to Khan's version of events in the Sheridan v News International court case, Qureshi offered a written apology, which Qureshi denies.
In Oct 2006, personal details of Qureshi and other anti-racist campaigners were posted on Redwatch, a neo-Nazi website that takes its name from an anti-communist Combat 18 slogan. The Sunday Herald reported that the activists are in danger of attacks, noting that individuals associated with the site have been have been blamed for "the serious assault of a TUC leader, accused of following campaigners and journalists to their homes, firebombing cars and intimidating other individuals using phone calls, hatemail and email.
Film work
Qureshi has appeared in several films and television dramas, including American Cousins, Buried, The Key, Proof 2, and the controversial Gas Attack, for which she won a best actress award at the 2001 Cherbourg-Octeville Festival of Irish & British Film.
References
- Positive Action in Housing website. Retrieved 4 December, 2006
- ^ Supporters visit deported family. BBC News, 10 October, 2005. Retrieved 4 December, 2006 Cite error: The named reference "BBC2" was defined multiple times with different content (see the help page).
- ^ Exchange over asylum row tactics. BBC News, 27 November, 2005. Retrieved 4 December, 2006
- Louis Julienne. Profile: Robina Qureshi - Positive Action in Housing. Electronic Immigration Network, June/July, 2006. Retrieved 4 December, 2006
- Lucy Bannerman. Politics of paranoia. Al-Ahram Weekly, 24 March, 2005. Retrieved 4 December, 2006
- Tina Smith. Disquiet at far-right activity. Institute of Race Relations, 24 March, 2004. Retrieved 4 December, 2006
- The Big Issue, June 2003
- The Mail on Sunday, 11 December 2005
- Julia Day. Sex columnist reveals Sheridan kiss-and-tell plot. The Guardian, 11 July, 2006. Retrieved 4 December, 2006
- Press Association, November 2006
- Neo-Nazi Extremists Issue Threats, Hate Mail Against Scottish Politicians and Racial Equality Activists. The Sunday Herald, 8 October, 2006.
- Cherbourg-Octeville Festival of Irish & British Film: 2001. The Internet Movie Database. Retrieved 4 December, 2006