GLASGOW school pupils staged a protest at Holyrood over the seizure of their asylum-seeker friend in a dawn raid.

GLASGOW school pupils staged a protest at Holyrood over the seizure of their asylum-seeker friend in a dawn raid.

Grace Waku, who turned 13 yesterday, and her family are being held at Dungavel detention centre in Lanarkshire after being seized in the early hours of Monday.

Pupils Lauren Bendford and Cheryl Paterson handed in a 885-name petition at parliament protesting about the family's treatment.

The teenagers gathered the signatures at Lourdes Secondary School in Cardonald following the detainment of Grace 12, her brothers Jean Marc, 16, and Genuine, four, and their parents.

The family face being returned to the Democratic Republic of Congo, from where they fled six years ago.

Lauren said: "Grace and I always go to school together. On Monday morning, I waited but she didn't turn up.

"Then on Tuesday I found out she had been taken away with her family to a prison in Scotland.

"Every time I think of her locked up in that place I can't stop crying."

Nationalist MSP Linda Fabiani asked Jack McConnell to accept the petition, asking him to intervene.

But Mr McConnell said: "It would be entirely inappropriate for a Scottish Minister to intervene in an individual case."

Campaigners pointed out that Education Minister Hugh Henry this week made a public plea to the Home Office on behalf of such cases involving children integrated into communities.