Roza Salih


Roza Salih is a human rights activist based in Glasgow, Scotland. In 2005, at the age of 15, she co-founded the Glasgow Girls with fellow pupils from Drumchapel High School. The Glasgow Girls campaigned to stop the UK Border Agency carrying out dawn raids and detaining and then deporting children, successfully preventing the deportation of their school friend, Agnesa Murselaj, a Roma from Kosovo. Salih, who was born in Southern Kurdistan, is a co-founder of Scottish Solidarity with Kurdistan and an election candidate for the Scottish National Party.

Life

Roza Salih arrived in Scotland in 2001 to seek asylum. Her family had fled Kurdistan in Northern Iraq after her grandfather and two uncles had been executed for opposing Saddam Hussein, who was still in power.

Education

She attended Drumchapel High School, and then graduated with honors in Law and Politics from Strathclyde University in 2013 where she was also Vice President for Diversity and Advocacy for the Students Association. Elected to the National Union of Students’ International Students Committee and the NUS UK Student trustee board.

Political activism

Whilst still a pupil at Drumchapel High School, Roza Salih campaigned with school friends to stop the UK Border Agency carrying out dawn raids, taking school children to detention and then deporting them. As well as lobbying the Scottish Government and the Home Office, the Glasgow Girls, as they became known, developed an early warning system with friends and neighbours to alert one another about raids by immigration officers.
In 2016 she worked with the Scottish Refugee Council and Education Strategy Commission to campaign for funding for scholarships for asylum seekers.
In 2017, she stood as a Scottish National Party candidate in the Glasgow City Council election, but was not elected. She is a part of Social Justice Commission of the SNP and is currently campaigning for the election to the Scottish parliament in 2021.
She is co-founder of Scottish Solidarity with Kurdistan. and has travelled to Kurdish regions in Turkey as part of a delegation of trade unionists and human rights activists.

Work life

She works in the constituency office of Chris Stephens, the Scottish National Party MP for Glasgow South West.

Awards and recognition

A musical of the Glasgow Girls was co-produced by The National Theatre of Scotland, Theatre Royal Stratford East, Citizens Theatre and Richard Jordan Productions. Written by David Greig and directed and composed by Cora Bissett, it premiered at The Citizens Theatre in Glasgow in 2012. In the original 2012 cast, the part of Roza Salih was played by Amiera Darwish.
In 2017 she was honoured by the Saltire Society as an Outstanding Woman of Scotland.