Afghanistan: Scots turn out in pouring rain to demand more UK action

In the pouring rain, people gathered outside the city chambers in an Afghan community-led show of strength and support.

Young men held Afghan flags aloft while toddling children bore signs decrying the Taliban as terrorists. There were babies in prams and in arms as well as grandparents.

Time after time, speakers including Health Secretary Humza Yousaf condemned the west's treatment of Afghanistan and its people and called on the UK Government to stand up and do more now.

Meanwhile, listeners spoke of their own need to do something. Miriam Mohammadi, whose relatives remain in Afghanistan, said the rally proves "they are not alone": "I am far away from my family but I can stand here and raise my voice."

"All we can do is raise their voice," Seftollah Masuom said of his brother and their mum, who is missing after fleeing the Taliban. "I have to stand, nobody else is going to stand for them."

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John and Moira Opara travelled from Livingston for the event. "We have to support people," John said. "We're a very wealthy country and with that should come support."

Gail and Alistair Fulton from Rutherglen agreed. "Just watching the news there's a sense of uselessness," said Alistair, but standing in George Square gave a sense of contributing.

Yousaf railed against the lives lost and money spent since the US-led invasion of Afghanistan in 2001, declaring "shame" on the political leaders who have brought things to this point.

"$2.2 trillion US dollars spent on the war in Afghanistan," he said. "That's $300 million us dollars a day. 170,000 have been killed in the war in Afghanistan. The overwhelming majority, over 100,000, Afghan men and women."

Yousaf said 2.1m Afghan people have "become refugees" since 2001, with 3.2m internally displaced and 475 British "largely working class men and women" have "come back home in coffins having fought in the war in Afghanistan."

"In amongst the trillions and the billions and the millions and the hundreds of thousands, not one single apology from the UK Government," he went on. "Not one syllable of regret uttered by the UK Government, not one single ounce of compassion from the UK Government even now in this desperate time of need."

Bob Doris MSP said he was speaking not as a parliamentarian but as "a friend and neighbour" of Afghans in Glasgow and urged listeners not to "believe the Taliban spin".

Meanwhile, Paul Sweeney MSP remembered the friend who was killed in service there. Bobby Hetherington died as a result of an IED blast in Helmand in 2013. Sweeney, an ex-army reservist, asked the crowd: "What was it for, what was the point?"

Attending were members of Afghanistan's minority Hazara group, one of the most persecuted by the Taliban. "We know exactly what they're going through," said woman of current events. She fled 20 years ago but asked not to be named. "We're in a safe place but we don't feel emotionally the same.

"That memory never really leaves you."

Glasgow City Council leader Susan Aitken said her team is "looking for more homes" to house Afghan refugees, while Sabir Zazai, head of the Scottish Refugee Council, called on the Scottish Government to show "the same friendship" to Afghanistan as it does to Malawi.

"It's raining and all of you are out here - that shows your love and compassion for a country that has endured many, many years of conflict and suffering," he told the crowd. "This is an important moment for us.

"Glasgow is an important city in standing up for the rights of the oppressed, for the rights of communities, for human rights."

There was applause when another speaker, event organiser Abdul Bostani of Glasgow Afghan United, spoke about the fight-back in Panjshir province and of three districts falling from Taliban control.

"The international community have handcuffed us and given us to terrorists," he said, urging governments not to give the new regime legitimacy. "The Taliban will never win the hearts and minds of our people."