I saw things that no child should see

ROZA SALIH, SCOTLAND’S FIRST REFUGEE COUNCILLOR, TALKS FLEEING HER HOMELAND FOR GLASGOW, WHAT SHE OWES HER PARENTS AND HER LOVE OF STILL GAME

WHAT made Roza Salih? Was it the blood on her street when she was a little girl? Was it the death of her grandfather and her uncles? Was it the gun her dad kept close to hand? Was it the detention camp and the guards? The high-rise in Drumchapel or the hills in Kurdistan? The moments of racism? Or the moments of kindness? Roza Salih knows who she is.

“I’m a Glasgow girl,” she says. But becoming it has been hard.

The chances are you’ll know a little of Roza’s story already. You may have seen the stage play or the documentaries that were inspired by the story of how she and six other schoolgirls fought to prevent the deportation of one of their friends – and won. They became known as the Glasgow Girls and, some 15 years on and now in their early thirties, they remain close friends. Their bond – and their beliefs – are still strong.

And for Roza, the campaign goes on.

Recently elected as a councillor for Pollok in Glasgow – making her the first refugee ever to be elected to a Scottish council – she says that one day she’d like to be an MSP and help set up a new immigration system in Scotland. She knows how harsh the current one can be. She remembers her father losing his right to work and how staff in a shop refused to accept her mother’s food vouchers. It was humiliating, says Roza, and we can do better. She thinks we could have a system based on common sense and compassion.

So where does all the commitment and belief come from? A lot of it is from her extraordinary parents: dad Saleem and mum Tania. Today, Roza and Tania are meeting me in the Starbucks at the Silverburn cinema near Roza’s office and, while the place buzzes with music and kids and people heading to see the new Elvis movie, the two women talk about the life they used to have in Kurdistan – the life they had to flee.

It was the late 1990s. The family were living in the city of Sulaymaniyah, in the Kurdistan region of Iraq. Saleem was a