Outside edge He may be the poster boy for the civil rights movement, but is there more to the lawyer Aamer Anwar than a handsome face and a lot of attitude?

More than a decade later, Anwar is still visibly affected by that evening's events. The 35-year-old lawyer claims to have long since exorcised the anger and bitterness which came close to consuming him in the years following, but the troubled look which shows momentarily in his eyes betrays a different reality.

When he regained consciousness on the night of November 6, 1991, he was being dragged along the wet cobbles of Ashton Lane in the Glasgow's West End, a policeman and policewoman on either side, tightly gripping him beneath his arms.

As he sees it, the evening started out fairly low key. He had gone out flyposting with a group of friends from university, putting up posters for a forthcoming demo against student grant cuts. He knew it was illegal, but on previous occasions when he had been caught, the most the police had done was throw away his paste and confiscate the posters.

On this evening he was in full flow, papering a wall, when someone shouted, ''Police!'' The group split up and ran in opposite directions. Anwar recalls hearing the thud of footfalls behind him. Of feeling someone jump on his back, falling onto the nearby grass and then being pulled onto a concrete street nearby.

With his senses in turmoil, he struggled to make sense of what was happening. His attacker wasn't a mugger or a drunken stranger who had taken a dislike to him in a crowded pub. He was a policeman.

Later, through mouthfuls of blood, Anwar recalls repeatedly asking the policeman ''Why?'' The reply would penetrate his psyche: ''This is what happens to black boys with big mouths.''

''What they did to me that night changed the whole course of my life,'' he says now, as he sits in a quiet booth in a city centre restaurant. ''I realised that I could either leave Glasgow and run or I could stay and fight. My life changed forever at that point.''

A passionate advocate for anti-racism and human rights, Anwar has devoted the years since to tireless campaigning. He is not afraid of controversy. Nor does he appear to have any qualms about being unpopular. His portfolio of newspaper cuttings reads like a handbook for wannabe political rebels.

In 1995, four years after he had his front teeth knocked out while being arrested for illegally flyposting, he successfully sued Strathclyde Police, winning (pounds) 4,200 in Scotland's first civil action alleging a racist attack by police. He has received numerous death threats from Nazi groups, causing him to move house close to 15 times in recent years. A driving force behind the anti-war demonstration in Glasgow last month, Anwar has also become an increasingly vocal critic on the plight of asylum seekers in this country.

''At the end of the day, my bottom line is that I simply don't give a damn what people say about me,'' he says evenly, and without a hint of bravado. ''To take a cue from the cop who knocked my teeth out that 'This is what happens to black boys with big mouths', well, as far as I am concerned, then black boys' big mouths just keep getting bigger.''

Tonight he is not a happy man. He has spent much of the evening on the phone. His growing anger is palpable. Eventually he sounds off with his trademark frankness. The majority of calls, he says, have been from asylum seekers, mainly Algerians, a country plagued with bloody unrest between the state and Islamic fundamentalists.

''They are terrified,'' says Anwar, blatantly frustrated. ''They want to know what to do when there is a knock on the door from the police. These are communities who have escaped persecution in their own countries, whether it be from fundamentalists or their own government. I think it is terrible that these people who have come here to seek asylum are all of a sudden being classed as terrorists.''

On occasion he speaks far too quickly, his words bursting forth with such haste it seems he is afraid that if he doesn't get it all out he will miss his chance. Other times he is more measured as he puts across his views.

''What is going on is racial profiling,'' he continues. ''At the moment they are picking on Algerians, next it will be Iranians, then the Iraqis, the same ones they picked on during the Gulf War. That is bullshit. They are going to destroy people's lives. It is what they did to the Italians during World War Two. It's what happened to the Jews.''

Much of his time is currently being taken up preparing the defence for a 36-year-old Algerian man awaiting trial for charges under the Prevention of Terrorism Act.

I wonder whether he worries that he could be representing individuals who are indeed potential terrorists? Momentarily he looks incredulous. ''It is a funny kind of terrorist,'' he says. ''Members of the IRA didn't go about wearing green berets and black shades. They blended in and tried not to stick out and show their Irish connections. Al Qaeda are meant to be deep cells, the people who are being arrested regularly go to mosques, they have long beards, they have wives with hijabs. The September 11 guys wore western clothes, they drank, they went to strip bars they didn't have anything to do with anyone who could be seen as hardcore Muslim.''

''But even so ... '' I begin. ''A lot of people would ask how I can represent them,'' he interjects. ''I would say why not? I firmly believe in the presumption of innocence until proven guilty.'' Topic closed. His belief, apparently, unshakeable.

His encounter with the police that winter evening in 1991 may have provided a catalyst, but the roots of his passion for campaigning go much deeper. Born in Manchester, but brought up in Liverpool, Anwar frequently experienced racism. Paki. Sambo. Nignog. Nigger. Just some of the names thrown at him.

He recalls a time when he was five or six and came home from school crying. Older children had been bullying him, calling him a black bastard. In an attempt to get them to stop he told them his family wasn't from Pakistan, that he was Spanish. It made no difference. They simply called him a lying black bastard instead and continued their onslaught of abuse.

''I was a very angry young boy,'' he admits. ''To a certain extent I had a chip on my shoulder. My sister dealt with it a different way - by getting the best marks. I would deal with it by using my mouth or hitting back. I was never a very good fighter, though. I always ended up getting beaten up but even then I still wouldn't shut up.''

Anwar's parents came to Britain in 1966. Both from wealthy backgrounds in Pakistan, theirs was a love marriage. Despite their privileged upbringings - his father had enjoyed a jet-set lifestyle, while his mother dreamed of being a doctor - they struggled to find work reflecting their educated backgrounds in the UK.

His father, Anwar, now retired, worked in factories before becoming a bus driver. His mother, Nargis, found work as an admin-istrative officer for a council's social work department. Although Anwar and his younger sister, Saiqa, were brought up in an essentially working-class environment, their parents had middle-class perceptions. His father, while a strict disciplinarian, worked night and day to provide the best for his children.

When Anwar was 11, his father was horrified

that some of his son's peers had been in

trouble with the police and was growing increasingly despondent with the state school teachers. They had told him and his wife that their expectations for their children to attend university were unrealistic. So he decided to send Aamer and Saiqa to private schools.

Liverpool Boys College was to prove a hostile environment. One of a handful of working-class pupils at the school and among an even smaller group of black and Asian students, Anwar retreated into his shell, spending almost every lunchtime reading books. His classmates refused to believe his father was a bus driver.

When he was 12, he became interested in Arab politics. One day he saw a picture of President Nasser, Yasser Arafat and another, anonymous man. Anwar told his school friends the third man was his dad. This time they believed him.

Anwar moved to Glasgow when he was 18. He wanted to be a pilot but was told by the Royal Air Force that his eyesight wasn't good enough. He decided to study engineering instead, figuring it would provide an alternative route into the RAF.

With his bowl haircut and thick glasses he was instantly labelled ''a square'' by fellow students. It didn't take him long, however, to discover the exquisite freedom that being hundreds of miles from home brought. Within months of arriving in Glasgow, he ditched his glasses for contact lenses, got a wave put through his hair and spent almost every night out clubbing. ''I remember the first Christmas I went home. I got off the train at Liverpool Lime Street station and my sister, who was still living at home, was like: 'Oh my God, that's brilliant,''' says Anwar. ''My dad, though, was standing there, looking at me, and he said: 'Who the bloody hell do you think you are? Michael Jackson?' He took me from being 18 back to being five years old again just like that.''

When he was 22, Anwar spent a summer working in America. Much of his free time was devoted to reading political literature or books about the black civil rights movement. Sitting in the shadow of the Senate Building in Washington or Greenwich Village beneath the towering Manhattan skyline, he would spend hours reading, absorbing the words of Malcolm X and Martin Luther King, among others.

When he arrived back in Glasgow he called his parents and told them he was giving up his engineering degree to study sociology, politics and philosophy. It didn't go down well.

''My parents cried their eyes out,'' he says, grimacing slightly at the memory. ''They came and saw me in Glasgow. My dad shouted: 'You are coming home right now.' But I said: 'No, I'm not.' They said: 'We won't speak to you, we will disinherit you.' But I refused to change my mind.'' Months later, he would have to call his parents again to tell them about his run-in with the police. While his successful legal action against Strathclyde Police was a major victory for Anwar, it was as spokesman for the Chhokar Family Justice Campaign that he made his name.

He was in his final year of a law degree when he began working for the Chhokar family, whose son Surjit Singh was stabbed to death outside his home in Overtown, Lanarkshire. The case was seen as a Scottish equivalent to the murder of Stephen Lawrence.

In the inquiry which followed, however, he was heavily criticised. It was said that he took on too many roles and also took liberties in interpreting for the family. Anwar bats these accusations away, labelling them a deliberate attempt to deflect attention from how the Scottish justice system failed the Chhokar family.

''I worked for the Chhokar family, not for the Crown Office, not for the police,'' says Anwar. ''They should have sorted out their own interpreters. My job was as a campaigner, to work for the family to the best of my abilities and to get justice.

''The Crown Office could not get beyond its own navel-gazing. I really do believe that if I had been a white, upper middle-class lawyer going into that realm I would have been treated very differently but to them I was just some jumped up Paki lawyer.''

There is a thin line between confidence and arrogance, one which Anwar often seems to come perilously close to crossing. I ask him to outline his flaws. ''Ego, anger. I am very fast tempered,'' he says, checking them off with his fingers. ''I have worked on that over the years, but it is still there. Sometimes anger can backfire, but other times you can utilise it to try and build bridges. I am conscious that in certain situations I must learn how to hold my tongue sometimes.''

It is my turn to look incredulous. Will Aamer Anwar ever be able to hold his tongue?

''Err ... '' he laughs loudly. ''I would like to. But no, I don't think so. What is the point in sitting quiet? You have been given a voice for a reason.''

We meet again the following evening, during which Anwar speaks at a public meeting alongside Paddy Hill, one of the Birmingham Six. The event, organised by the Edinburgh Stop The War Coalition, is being held in a church on the capital's King George IV Bridge. As always, Anwar is immaculately turned out, dressed in a smart, dark-coloured suit, long black jacket and carefully polished shoes. ''Meetings like this are normally busy,'' he says, glancing around as he straightens his tie. ''But many members of the Muslim community are staying away because they are afraid. They are scared to leave their homes.''

He is a confident public speaker, using self-assured hand gestures to illustrate points and making frequent eye contact with individuals around the room. Controlled and practised, he shows on only one occasion how intensely emotional he feels about the issues at hand. His voice becomes raised and his words tumble out in a rush. He pauses. ''I'm sorry,'' he says. ''It is just this makes me so angry.''

I wonder if this humbling moment is all part of his stage persona. Afterwards, as Anwar berates himself for his momentary loss of control, I am not so sure.

Later on the train home to Glasgow, he takes advantage of the rare lull in activity to make some telephone calls, first to his parents, then his sister. Neither household is home. His brow furrows. ''It is 10.45pm. My parents should

be home. I always get worried when, you

know ...'' He trails off.

His mobile phone rings. It is his sister. After a few pleasantries he asks if his niece, Raabiah, is still awake. There is a pause as his sister hands the phone over. Listening to his niece chatter away, his face softens, in stark contrast to the steely eyes and determined set of his jaw during his speech.

He hangs up and peers out of the train window into the darkness. ''I wonder where my mum and dad have got to?'' On cue his phone rings again. ''My parents,'' he says, his face creasing into a smile. He chats to his mother, in a mixture of English and Punjabi, about his day and plans for the weekend. ''She wanted to know if I was wrapped up warm,'' he says, grinning. ''I tried to tell her I am inside the train, not bloody outside it.'' He rolls his eyes in mock exasperation.

Though his career is high profile, he is intensely private about his personal life. In recent years he has been labelled one of Scotland's most eligible bachelors. At 35, though, surely he must have considered marrying and settling down.

''I would like to get married and have children one day,'' says Anwar. ''I would love to have that part of my life where I could close the door and it is separate from everything else.

''Over the years when things happened, such as being on the BNP hit lists, having my life threatened or being attacked in the press, it would make me think I can't have a family because I don't want someone I love to have to go through that. But I do want a family.''

Anwar's parents are equally keen for their son to marry and have children, but would prefer that he chooses an Asian wife. ''They worry about things such as language, culture and religion and me being able to pass that on to my children,'' he explains. ''I understand that. I might not accept it, but I respect it.'' Whatever Anwar decides, he is his own man. ''I have worked against racism for years,'' he says. ''I will decide on the basis of what is right for me, that it is a person I love.''

He refuses to be drawn on his current relationship status. ''I would only go as far as to say I am not married. I made a promise to myself a long time ago that this was the one area of my life I would always keep private. I plan to stick to that.'' It is the first time he looks physically uncomfortable. He grins in an attempt to defuse the seriousness of the situation. ''Next question.''

Besides anything else, it seems he simply does not have the time to sustain a relationship. A typical day begins at 5.30am when he works at home before heading into the office at 8am - he has worked for Beltrami Berlow, one of Scotland's leading criminal defence firms, for a year. After work he heads out on the campaign trail. Returning home often close to 11pm, he has a bite to eat before working though a list of phonecalls and

e-mails. It is normally after midnight when he falls into bed.

I can't help but wonder where he gets his stamina - if there are ever days he thinks of throwing in the towel. ''When you are campaigning sometimes it might only be a tiny step forward, sometimes you might actually take a step backwards, but the response and support gives me belief in humanity. It gives me belief in what society should be like. That may sound like a load of airy, fairy bullshit, but in all honesty, it is what keeps me going.

''Another world is possible. That is probably my daily belief, call it a religion, whatever. I say it every single day. Some days are worse than others, some days are absolutely fantastic, but every single day I see another world is possible. I have to believe that.''

Despite all he has been through - the death threats, the criticisms - there is still an air of innocence about Anwar's optimistic tone. As I watch him gather up his coat and papers to leave, I ponder his Weeble-like perseverance. Regardless what future battles may bring, it is clear Aamer Anwar is not ready to hold his tongue just yet. n