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Court Orders Asylum Seekers Back to Australia
An Australian court on Tuesday ordered the government to accept 433 mainly Afghan asylum seekers rescued by a Norwegian freighter but rejected by Canberra as it toughens its stand against people smuggling.
The asylum seekers are on board an Australian navy troop carrier steaming for Papua New Guinea. There was no immediate comment from the Australian government, which had said it would appeal if the Federal Court ruled against it.
The ruling threw a spanner into the government's plans to send the illegal immigrants to the tiny Pacific island of Nauru and New Zealand, using Papua New Guinea as a transit point.
The court found the government had detained the boat people illegally off Australia's Indian Ocean outpost of Christmas Island when it sent crack SAS troops on board the freighter Tampa on August 29 to stop the asylum seekers from swimming ashore.
The court action was brought by a civil liberties group.
The Australian government has faced down international outrage over the eight-day Tampa standoff but has won widespread public support at home for its determination to halt the trade in illegal immigrants.
Prime Minister John Howard, who faces a tough general election toward the end of the year in which he will be trying to win a third consecutive term, was in the United States for an official visit.
The court ruling came a day after Australia struck a US$10.2 million deal with cash-strapped Nauru to swap 283 of the Tampa asylum seekers, and another 237 found on a second vessel, for diesel and other incentives.
Another 150 of the Tampa's human cargo were due to have been sent to New Zealand. All 670 asylum seekers are on board the navy's HMAS Manoora on the way to Papua New Guinea.
Judge North said that, given the practical considerations of getting the boat people from the Manoora to the mainland, he had set the government a deadline of 3 a.m. EDT Friday to comply.
Australia on Tuesday turned back a third vessel, estimated to be carrying 130 people, which had run aground off the remote Australian island chain of Ashmore Reef, 534 miles west of Darwin.
The government plans to introduce new laws next week to remove both from its migration zone -- meaning anyone arriving there will not be entitled to seek asylum in Australia.
Monday's deal with Nauru, under which Canberra would have paid the world's smallest republic to take 520 asylum seekers ashore where they can be processed by the United Nations, was a message to people smugglers that Australia would not allow their cargo to land, the government says.
About 5,000 or so boat people have arrived in Australia annually in recent years, a small number by international comparisons but a sharp rise on a few hundred five years ago.
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