A COACH who helped to set up a cricket team of Afghan asylum seekers in Scotland has said he fears for the safety and mental health of players following a display of “vitriolic hatred” where some stay.
The Afghan Snow Leopards team manager said he is worried for some of the team who stay at the former Cladhan Hotel in Falkirk, now being used by the Home Office to house asylum seekers.
Some of them have faced verbal abuse in the high street and when visiting supermarkets in the area. He said one player he spoke to last week displayed a “palpable loss of confidence” following the protest by Save Our Future & Our Kids Futures earlier this month.
The team manager, who requested not to be named due to the “hostile atmosphere” he feels there is around asylum seekers at the moment, told the Sunday National some of the players had been at the Falkirk accommodation for around two years.
He said the length of time it takes for asylum claims to be processed has led to him fearing for the players’ mental health, and he is now also worried about their safety when they’re out on the streets.
Asked if he was worried about the players’ safety, he said: “Definitely, yes.
“I think while they’re in the hostel, they’re going to be okay. Their mental health is dreadful, but that’s probably more due to the time it takes to get an asylum claim done.
“I’m more scared for their safety if they’re out and about.”
He went on: “They don’t talk about it very much because it’s very difficult for them, but a lot of them have had remarks shouted at them in the street.
“When you hear about the journeys they’ve made, some idiot shouting at them across the street is nothing compared to what they’ve been through, but I think they are a bit surprised because when they first got here, it was okay. I didn’t hear of anybody getting a shouting at.
“It all seems to have picked up a bit lately.”
The cricket team was formed last year and involves players from the Falkirk hotel and another asylum seeker hotel in Bathgate.
The Snow Leopards manager has also been volunteering with Friends of Scottish Settlers in Falkirk for more than three years and has helped move people from temporary accommodation to local authority flats, build CVs and get National Insurance numbers when they gain refugee status.
He said the asylum seekers he has worked with want to contribute to Scottish society, but he accused the UK Government of wasting that resource and “warehousing” people.
“If the decision was quick about granting them refugee status or not, I wouldn’t necessarily have an issue with the hotels,” he said.
“But I know people who have been waiting for a decision for three years. You’re putting your life on hold, and you’ve effectively warehoused all these people.
“A lot of them are young. They all come here with a lot of enthusiasm about their new home that they now feel safe in and this is where they are going to make their life, and it is just ground out of them over these years.
“It’s wasting all this energy and resource and willingness to work hard in the community and be part of Scotland.”
He said being part of the counterprotest earlier this month – which involved groups such as Stand Up to Racism Scotland and Falkirk Trades Union Council – was “horrible” as the anti-racism demonstration gradually became dwarfed by the protest across the road.
“It was just hatred coming across the road,” he said.
“I don’t understand how you can hate someone you’ve never met.
“It was vicious; some of the things that were said were extraordinary. There was someone who had a flag that said ‘kill them all’. There were anti-Islamic banners as well.
“But as time went on, the other side was massively outnumbering us.
“I was very surprised at the vitriolic hatred.”
Dozens of demonstrators from each group stood on opposite sides of the road outside the hotel, with police keeping them separate.
Protesters, some waving Union flags, chanted “send them home” and anti-racism demonstrators responded with chants of “refugees are welcome here” and “this is what community looks like”.
Having worked with refugees and asylum seekers since 2022, the Afghan Snow Leopards manager said he wanted to get across the message they have an incredible work ethic.
He said: “They all want to work. They don’t care what the work is.
“That’s the philosophy of where they come from. If I talk to the Afghans and I ask what happens if you don’t have a job in Afghanistan, they say you don’t eat.
“Then I’ll ask, ‘is there not any benefits?’, and they look at you like they have no idea what you’re talking about.
“They also want to be safe, that’s what you hear them talk about.”
It was announced last week that judges are set to be replaced by adjudicators as part of a Home Office bid to “fast-track” asylum claims and move asylum seekers out of hotels.
Home Secretary Yvette Cooper said “completely unacceptable” delays had left those whose asylum claims had been rejected in the system for years.
A Home Office spokesperson said: “This government inherited a broken asylum and immigration system. We have taken practical steps to fix that chaos by doubling the rate of asylum decision making in our first year in office, and increasing the percentage of cases processed within six months from 7% to 42%.
“We will continue working to reduce the amount of time that people spend in the asylum system, ramping up the removal of failed asylum seekers from our country, and reforming the appeals process so it is cannot be abused to frustrate and delay those removals."
