Freed Mercy to join fight to close Dungavel

Pressure is building on the Scottish Executive to take action to close Dungavel after Scottish Socialist MSP Rosie Kane acted to secure the release of a mother and her 14 month old child.
Mercy Ikolo, from Cameroon, and her Irish-born daughter, Percie had been locked up in the detention centre after being arrested
The mother and child were released on bail after Rosie - who lives in a two bedroom flat in Glasgow’s Govanhill – offered to put them up in her home.
Rosie said: “We have a tired wee baby here who’s sound asleep right now.
Our immediate priority is to get Mercy and her baby back to some kind of normality.
“I’ve sorted out a bit of space for them at home. The family are obviously traumatised after being detained in this house of horrors.
“But at least now they’re at liberty. Percie can eat when she’s hungry and can play when she wants and sleep when she wants.”
Rosie says she is just offering a bit of Scottish hospitality – in contrast to the cold cruelty of David Blunkett and the Home Office.
Mercy Ikolo said:
“Although I’m delighted to be free, I’ll now be getting involved in the campaign to set free the other children locked up in Dungavel. In Dungavel, we all became friends.
“Locking children up is physically and psychologically damaging. I’ll be visiting them tomorrow and my message will be: ‘keep up their spirits – you’ll all soon be free.”
Mercy will be speaking tomorrow night (Friday) at 7.30 pm at a public meeting in the Moir Hall, Glasgow called by Positive Action on Housing – ‘Time to close Dungavel’.
She will then attend the demo on Saturday called by the STUC outside Dungavel on Saturday.
The Scottish Socialist Party backed Rosie’s action and contrasted it with the cowardly subservience of the Scottish Executive.
A spokesperson said: “At the very moment Jack McConnell was publicly claiming that his government was powerless to do anything about the incarceration of children in a detention centre on his own doorstep, Rosie was taking action to liberate one family.
“Dungavel could be closed within a week if the Lib Lab coalition was prepared to show a fraction of the humanity of Rosie Kane.”