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Robina Qureshi is a Scottish human rights campaigner and actor. She is a notable critic of the UK's asylum policies and has campaigned to close detention centres for asylum seekers.

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

In September 2005, Qureshi travelled to Albania 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 was 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 Hill of the Birmingham Six. Qureshi described the practice of dawn raids as "inhumane and barbaric". She called on Scotland's First Minister Jack McConnell to instruct Strathclyde Police not to co-operate with immigration officials who carry out dawn raids. . The police, she said, "surely must despise 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, . Chisolm described Qureshi as "a very formidable campaigner and completely dedicated to the rights of minorities."

In November 2007, Qureshi took up the case of 13 year old Meltem Avcil, a 13 year old Kurdish girl from Doncaster, who began self-harming after being detained with her mother at Yarl's Wood Immigration Removal Centre and about to be deported. Enlisting the support of the actress Juliet Stevenson, Sir Al Aynsley, Childrens Commissioner, and journalists at The Independent newspaper, including Natasha Walter, Qureshi ran a campaign across UK and Europe to secure Meltem and her mother's release. She said: "I believe that the trauma that the UK Government has put Meltem Avcil through will haunt her for the rest of her life. It is in the best interests of this child to be returned to her home in Doncaster, the familiarity of her school, friends and teachers, and to have access within this comfort zone to psychiatrists to assist her in returning to her former happy self." The family went onto be granted refugee status and are now living in the North of England.

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 terrorism and the subsequent impact on the Muslim community to the experience of the Irish 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 feel they are being targeted, just like the Irish were by the British 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 the prominent human rights lawyer, Aamer Anwar, helped to campaign on behalf of the family of murdered Indian waiter Surjit Singh Chhokhar. They forged for changes within the Crown Office, working with the then Solicitor General Neil Davidson QC, now Lord Davidson, Advocate General for Scotland. Qureshi also served on the Lawrence Steering Group. She has led campaigns to stop extreme far right groups organising or gaining a platform in Scotland.

In January 2009, following a decision by the BBC not to air an emergency appeal for Gaza, Qureshi joined protesters who occupied the lobby of the Glasgow building at Pacific Quay, Glasgow. She called on the public to donate their license fee to the Disasters Emergency Committee's work in Gaza. She said: "The DEC consists of the most respected and reputable charities in the UK, calling for urgent aid NOW which they believe they can deliver on the ground in Gaza NOW. So who is the BBC to tell these charities whether or not they can do their job on the ground?"

Controversy

In November 2005, New Labour politician Tom Harris MP, criticised Qureshi's charity, Positive Action in Housing, for their stance on dawn raids, claiming the charity went too far in urging direct action to stop failed asylum seekers being removed. Qureshi robustly defended the charity's campaign, claiming they acted "extremely responsibly ... to end dawn raids".

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" for having "spoken out of turn".

In July 2006, Qureshi was accused of verbally abusing News of the World columnist Anvar Khan. According to Khan's version of events in the Sheridan v News International court case, Qureshi offered a written apology, which Qureshi vigorously denied.

In October 2006, the personal details of Qureshi and other human rights 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 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, hate mail and e-mail. .

Film work

Qureshi 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

1. ^ 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).
2. ^ Exchange over asylum row tactics. BBC News, 27 November, 2005. Retrieved 4 December, 2006
3. Louis Julienne. Profile: Robina Qureshi - Positive Action in Housing. Electronic Immigration Network, June/July, 2006. Retrieved 4 December, 2006
5. Lucy Bannerman. Politics of paranoia. Al-Ahram Weekly, 24 March, 2005. Retrieved 4 December, 2006
6. Tina Smith. Disquiet at far-right activity. Institute of Race Relations, 24 March, 2004. Retrieved 4 December, 2006
7. The Mail on Sunday, 11 December 2005
8. Julia Day. Columnist reveals. The Guardian, 11 July, 2006. Retrieved 4 December, 2006
9. Press Association, November 2006
10. Neo-Nazi Extremists Issue Threats, Hate Mail Against Scottish Politicians and Racial Equality Activists. The Sunday Herald, 8 October, 2006.
11. Cherbourg-Octeville Festival of Irish & British Film: 2001. The Internet Movie Database. Retrieved 4 December, 2006

External links

• Positive Action in Housing
• Robina Qureshi at IMDb

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• Living people
• Scottish actors
• Scottish human rights activists
• Scots of Pakistani descent