Yesterday, as part of the One Day Without Us national campaign, there was a rally in Piccadilly Gardens asking local people to defend the rights of our immigrant communities.
It could be EU nationals who have settled here and now face uncertainty over their rights to stay once the process of the UK leaving the EU starts, or asylum seekers and refugees who have been locked up in detention centres due to bureaucratic failings. The message was loud and clear… treating people in this way is inhumane.
The rally brought together people from all over the region because of their experiences. Magdaline, who is seeking asylum in the UK, told us her experiences in the UK and why she is here.
"I came here to fight for my life" she explained "I said to Britain 'My life is in danger where I come from. Please can you give me shelter'. I will work, or if I have to go to school I will go to school. I am asking Britain if I can stay because where I coming from I can be killed because I am a lesbian woman and I am against my Government.
"I was caught with my girlfriend in bed and my girlfriend was tortured" she added "I don't know if she is alive or if she is dead but luckily I was able to run away and I managed to come here. But since I got here I have been treated like a prisoner."
The rally was organised with local people who have come from all around the world and have made Manchester and Salford their home. As well as the rally, members of United For Change and Manchester Migrant Solidarity made some amazing banners for their campaign against immigration detention under the slogan These Walls Must Fall.
Michael Collins a coordinator with Right to Remain, who organised the rally, described the event.
"We gathered today to celebrate our solidarity" he explained "It was great to see so many people standing shoulder to shoulder with our migrant friends and neighbours. "This could be the start of something big. If anyone wants to get involved with the These Walls Must Fall campaign, check out the website at detention.org.uk."
Local resident, Sue Arnall, attended the rally in Piccadilly Gardens, saying "There is a lot of joy from making friends. So let's go with joy and pull these walls down!
"We have to keep going because the mood after Brexit has given people who were racists before it the confidence to come out of the woodwork and I find it very worrying" she added "It's the idea that a lot of our problems are caused by foreigners and I don't believe it. I think a lot of our strengths come from mixing. It may be my friends going living in Spain, or Greek people coming here, and we learn from each other. We are richer for having friends from all over the world living here sharing their skills. We can't let the lies of people with prejudice win; we've got to stand up to them."
Sue turned up at the rally with paintings by two young asylum seekers she met ten years ago. She said how they loved living here so much that she went to lobby MPs using what the kids had said. Ten years later they are still here.
"The kids who were around then are not kids anymore" she said "They are at college training to become doctors, dentists and nurses and it's lovely. I'm so proud to have friends from all these amazing places, I feel richer for it."
Hwa Young Jung, who has lived in the UK for 12 years and works in the arts, told us why she was attending the rally, "I am here to see what I can do to help in these troubling times… When I moved to Manchester I got to really like the people in the north and my husband is from here so I have a personal connection to the place.
"After the referendum last year I have seen it becoming more and more intolerant and it is not like the place when I first arrived" she added "I think a lot of it is happening because the media and the Government have used certain rhetoric to avoid talking about issues caused by austerity. The blame for so much has become focused on immigrants. But immigration is a red hearing."
Magdaline talked about the stark difference between how the British people have treated her compared to the British Government. Whilst seeking asylum she has faced interrogations, the fear of detention and the possibility of being forced to return to Zimbabwe.
"They have asked me many things, tomorrow I have to go to sign and I don't know if they will take me to detention" she said "I am being forced to go back to Zimbabwe where I am not free."
For Magdaline it was the horrors she had to face in Zimbabwe to led her to flee from her country... "It was not easy to leave my country, to leave my family, and to stay in the streets hiding. If I had an option I would go back home, no one wants to stay away from home. Even if I had to go to bed without food I would rather be home. I am not here for the fun of it. I don't know when I will see my parents, I have just lost my brother, my mother is not well and I don't know when I will see them. I am here saying to Britain, `Please save my life'. That is all I am asking for.
"I have suffered, I was raped when I was in Zimbabwe and they did nothing about it" she added "My partner has been tortured and I think she may be dead. They know it is happening in Zimbabwe and that it is happening everyday but still we are being told that we have to go back."
The experiences Magdaline and others have had whilst seeking asylum in the UK sound terrible especially given the horrors they have already been forced to endure.
"Some of our friends are being kept in detention centres, held like prisoners, just for asking for asylum" she said "They are being detained, they are being victimised, they have already been victimised in their own countries.
"I am going to Dallas Court tomorrow, if they detain me or anything I would rather die, I would rather drink poison than die the way we Zimbabweans are being killed. We are only asking for that, we don't steal, we are not prostitutes; we won't sell our bodies; we are only asking for them to spare our lives… nothing more.
"We get £35 pounds a week and we are living on that, as long as they allow us to be here, even if they don't give us money. Whatever they do we won't do anything illegal, all we want is for them to accept us."
Magdaline's experiences in the UK have been mixed. On the one hand the vast majority of people she meets have been warm and welcoming but the system that deals with her application for asylum has been harsh and at times inhumane. Yesterday in Piccadilly Gardens the people of Salford and Manchester stood together to demand this changes.
Words and photos by Steven Speed
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