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GLASGOW GIRLS RENEW TV BATTLE AGAINST DAWN RAIDS
By Ulla Schott
Sunday Herald, UK
Oct 1 2006
THE Glasgow teenagers who waged a high-profile campaign against
"dawn raids" by the immigration authorities are making and starring
in a new BBC documentary.
The group of girls from Drumchapel High School began their battle for
asylum seekers' rights when a fellow pupil, Agnesa Murselaj, and her
family were detained by immigration officials during a dawn raid.
Their successful campaign to prevent the family being deported to
Kosovo after their asylum applications failed was the subject of an
award-winning BBC film shown in August 2005, Tales From The Edge:
The Glasgow Girls.
But when the teenagers, now widely known as the Glasgow Girls, became
involved just a month later in the controversial removal of the Vucaj
family, the BBC approached them to make a second film. This time,
however, the documentary will be composed of video diaries kept by
the girls themselves.
Lindsay Hill, the BBC producer behind both films, said: "The first
film was broadcast on BBC Scotland in the Tales From The Edge series
on August 31, 2005. And in the following September the children's
commissioner for Scotland, Professor Kathleen Marshall, talked on all
the media of the need to make a big public outcry about the scandal
of dawn raids and the brutal treatment of asylum seekers and their
children.
"Shortly after that, the Vucaj family were taken. And I realised I
had to go on and cover that with the camera and keep on filming. So
immediately after the first broadcast it all started off again."
Marshall said the new film will show how the girls developed from
determined teenagers into seasoned campaigners.
"The second film is about the year in which they became politically
aware human rights campaigners. It is an 'observational documentary'
using fly-on-the-wall methods. It records what actually happens in
the girls' lives."
The teenagers - Amal Azzudin from Somalia, Kosovan Roma Agnesa
Murselaj, Roza Salih from Kurdistan, Polish Roma Ewelina Siwak and
Scots Emma Clifford, Jennifer McCarron and Toni Henderson - have
become increasingly influential voices. Their intervention in the
Vucaj case led to a national debate on the ethics of dawn raids.
Meanwhile, last December they helped win a reprieve for two
asylum-seeker families facing deportation, the Gorbachovas from
Belarus and the Hakobians from Armenia.
They have now won a clutch of awards for their appeals, including
Best Public Campaign at The Herald Diageo Politician of the Year
Awards last December.
They were also invited to the Scottish parliament, where they met the
first minister and secured an agreement not to deport asylum-seeker
families during examination times.
Glasgow Girl Amal Azzudin said she believed the second film would be
more revealing than the first. "I think that the second film is going
to be even better than the first, because it is going to open the
eyes of the audience even more, as there are a lot of campaigns going
to be in it, like when we went to the parliament and what happened
since we lost the Vucaj family. It is going to educate people to what
is going on in Scotland. I work with a lot of people who don't know
what's going on, even people in college don't know."
Roza Salih added: "In the film we speak about our lives and our
problems. We have two cameras and we share them between us.
"For one year we have been doing this [video diary] and then we are
taking it to our journalist and she is editing it with us and doing
the voice-overs."
Rosemary Burnett, director of Amnesty International Scotland, said
the girls showed that motivated young people can effect real change.
"The Glasgow Girls' campaigns raised the issue of the devastating
eff ects of dawn raids on their classmates and on themselves. This
led to more political movement than had been achieved by human rights
NGOs and refugee organisations.
"We look forward to seeing the second film and hope it will inspire
other young people to take action," she said.
The documentary is due to be broadcast at the start of November
on BBC2.
By Ulla Schott
Sunday Herald, UK
Oct 1 2006
THE Glasgow teenagers who waged a high-profile campaign against
"dawn raids" by the immigration authorities are making and starring
in a new BBC documentary.
The group of girls from Drumchapel High School began their battle for
asylum seekers' rights when a fellow pupil, Agnesa Murselaj, and her
family were detained by immigration officials during a dawn raid.
Their successful campaign to prevent the family being deported to
Kosovo after their asylum applications failed was the subject of an
award-winning BBC film shown in August 2005, Tales From The Edge:
The Glasgow Girls.
But when the teenagers, now widely known as the Glasgow Girls, became
involved just a month later in the controversial removal of the Vucaj
family, the BBC approached them to make a second film. This time,
however, the documentary will be composed of video diaries kept by
the girls themselves.
Lindsay Hill, the BBC producer behind both films, said: "The first
film was broadcast on BBC Scotland in the Tales From The Edge series
on August 31, 2005. And in the following September the children's
commissioner for Scotland, Professor Kathleen Marshall, talked on all
the media of the need to make a big public outcry about the scandal
of dawn raids and the brutal treatment of asylum seekers and their
children.
"Shortly after that, the Vucaj family were taken. And I realised I
had to go on and cover that with the camera and keep on filming. So
immediately after the first broadcast it all started off again."
Marshall said the new film will show how the girls developed from
determined teenagers into seasoned campaigners.
"The second film is about the year in which they became politically
aware human rights campaigners. It is an 'observational documentary'
using fly-on-the-wall methods. It records what actually happens in
the girls' lives."
The teenagers - Amal Azzudin from Somalia, Kosovan Roma Agnesa
Murselaj, Roza Salih from Kurdistan, Polish Roma Ewelina Siwak and
Scots Emma Clifford, Jennifer McCarron and Toni Henderson - have
become increasingly influential voices. Their intervention in the
Vucaj case led to a national debate on the ethics of dawn raids.
Meanwhile, last December they helped win a reprieve for two
asylum-seeker families facing deportation, the Gorbachovas from
Belarus and the Hakobians from Armenia.
They have now won a clutch of awards for their appeals, including
Best Public Campaign at The Herald Diageo Politician of the Year
Awards last December.
They were also invited to the Scottish parliament, where they met the
first minister and secured an agreement not to deport asylum-seeker
families during examination times.
Glasgow Girl Amal Azzudin said she believed the second film would be
more revealing than the first. "I think that the second film is going
to be even better than the first, because it is going to open the
eyes of the audience even more, as there are a lot of campaigns going
to be in it, like when we went to the parliament and what happened
since we lost the Vucaj family. It is going to educate people to what
is going on in Scotland. I work with a lot of people who don't know
what's going on, even people in college don't know."
Roza Salih added: "In the film we speak about our lives and our
problems. We have two cameras and we share them between us.
"For one year we have been doing this [video diary] and then we are
taking it to our journalist and she is editing it with us and doing
the voice-overs."
Rosemary Burnett, director of Amnesty International Scotland, said
the girls showed that motivated young people can effect real change.
"The Glasgow Girls' campaigns raised the issue of the devastating
eff ects of dawn raids on their classmates and on themselves. This
led to more political movement than had been achieved by human rights
NGOs and refugee organisations.
"We look forward to seeing the second film and hope it will inspire
other young people to take action," she said.
The documentary is due to be broadcast at the start of November
on BBC2.