Although police had removed all refugees from the Dungavel immigration removal centre before today's protest, around 200 demonstrators, organised by the Glasgow Campaign to Welcome Refugees and the Scottish Socialist party, ringed the centre , which is about 30 miles south west of Edinburgh.
MSP Carolyn Leckie was charged by police for refusing to let officers search her handbag on her arrival at Dungavel. She was charged under Section 60 of the Criminal Justice Act.
Protesters at carried placards with the slogans "End Detention Now" and "Nobody is Illegal".
Also addressing demonstrators was human rights campaigner Heidi Giuliani, whose son Carlo, 23, was shot dead by police during protests at the 2001 G8 summit in Genoa.
There in spririt but not in the flesh, was George Galloway MP – a statement was read to the crowd in which he apologised for his absence and condemned Dungavel as a "blot on the landscape and a blot on humanity".
