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A candlelit vigil being held at the Red Road flats in Glasgow late Tuesday.
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Demonstrators have appealed for more compassion in Britain's immigration policy after a family of three apparently Russian asylum seekers committed suicide after being denied refugee status.
About 30 protesters gathered outside an immigration office in Glasgow on Tuesday following the deaths of the father, mother and son, who plunged 15 stories from a block in an impoverished Scottish housing complex on Sunday. The family — Serge Serykh, 43, his wife, Tatyana, and stepson, aged about 20 — were among thousands of asylum seekers living in public housing in Glasgow.
A charity, Positive Action in Housing, said Britain had rejected the family's application to stay.
"We are calling for a public inquiry into the suicide that took place as there could be more instances like this," said the group's director, Robina Qureshi. "No one knows what happened in that flat, but we need to know what the role of the U.K. Border Agency and Strathclyde Police was."
Russian diplomats were waiting to receive confirmation from British authorities Wednesday that the family was indeed from Russia. British media reports have identified the family as Russian.
Strathclyde Police said the family had been living at the Red Road flats in Glasgow's impoverished Springburn area since February and confirmed that their deaths Sunday are being treated as suspected suicide.
Qureshi said the case might not be isolated. It was normal for families fearing deportation to come to the charity threatening suicide rather than return to their home country, she said.
"There is a great deal of mental strain, and it is normal currency for people to talk about ending their lives as a viable alternative to destitution or removal," she said. "The public has a right to know if we have a fair asylum system, or one which terrorizes vulnerable people to the point they would take their own lives."
Fellow asylum seekers housed in the same complex held a candlelit vigil for the family on Monday and Tuesday nights, mourning the deaths with a makeshift shrine of candles and messages of condolence.
More than 5,000 asylum seekers live in Glasgow, according to the Scottish Refugee Council, with the main countries of origin being Eritrea, Afghanistan, Zimbabwe and Sudan.
Asylum seekers in Britain are placed in public housing while they make complicated appeals through the British immigration system that can take years. Most are rejected as economic migrants seeking a better living, rather than as refugees fleeing persecution in their home country.
Only 13 percent of applicants were granted refugee status out of about 6,400 decisions made in last three months of 2009, Border Agency figures showed.
(AP, MT)
