Press Association
Friday 10th February 2012
Hundreds of campaigners have joined a march and rally in memory of three asylum seekers who leapt from a tower block.
It is understood the trio, named locally as Serguei Serykh, his wife Tatiana and his stepson, had been living in the Red Road flats in Springburn for a short time after arriving from Canada.
An estimated 200 people marched from the flats in Petershill Drive to Glasgow city centre, where a rally was held in Shuttle Street.
The protesters were demanding an end to the "enforced removal" of refugee families and called for a fatal accident inquiry into the three deaths.
Margaret Woods, of the Glasgow Campaign to Welcome Refugees, said after the march: "It was a tragedy when those people jumped and it's been made to seem as though it was a one-off occurrence, don't judge our asylum system by it.
"The point we're making is you do judge the asylum system by the fact that people are so ill and terrified that they jump from 15 floors."
She went on: "The way they get treated here makes things much much worse and some end up in this tragic position. Thousands of people live in this country in fear and it's completely unacceptable."
Robina Qureshi, director of Positive Action in Housing, said: "It was a very strong and united march to remember the family, but also to demand an end to any more enforced removals.
"We demand an end to any more evictions of families because we don't want any more suicides. The march was very united in that we want a fatal accident inquiry."
The UK Border Agency said it had advised the Russian family that arrangements were being made to return them to the country where they had previously been granted protection. A statement issued by the agency after the tragedy said no officers were in the vicinity of the flats when the family died and no "imminent" action to remove them from the UK had been planned.
