Boys to appeal to High Court over asylum rejection

Two boys who broke out of an Australian Outback detention centre and were later refused asylum at a British consulate will appeal against their rejection before a British court, their lawyer said in Adelaide.

The two brothers, aged 12 and 13, took part in a mass breakout of asylum seekers from the Woomera detention centre in South Australia state in 2002.

They travelled to Melbourne where they sought asylum at the British Consulate-General but were returned within hours to Woomera.

They claim they are from Afghanistan but the government insists they are Pakistani.

Paul Boylan, a lawyer for the boys, said the British Court of Appeal would hear their case in July against Britain’s refusal to accept them.

Lawyers will argue that by not granting the boys asylum, the British government breached the European Convention on Human Rights, which forbids torture and inhumane or degrading treatment.

They will also argue that UK Foreign Minister Jack Straw failed to properly consider the boys’ case.

“Jack Straw, within seven hours, said ‘no’ and pushed them out the front door,” Boylan said. “Our argument is that he should have granted them asylum and that the fact that he didn’t was a breach of English law.”

A Family Court last year ordered the boys released from detention, but that decision was overturned by the High Court last month. The two are now being held at a house owned by the Catholic Church in the South Australian capital, Adelaide.

The boys’ family is fighting Australia’s rejection of their asylum application.

Australia’s policy is that all asylum seekers must remain in detention until their applications are processed.

Recently, the government has bent to domestic and international pressure by removing most of the children and their mothers from the centres, which are regularly scenes of riots and hunger strikes.