Australia may reject Timor asylum seekers

Australia may reject Timor asylum seekers

CANBERRA (Reuter): Australia could reject East Timorese seeking political asylum because they may be Portuguese nationals, Foreign Minister Gareth Evans said yesterday.

Evans was responding to local media reports that government legal advisers had said some East Timorese asylum-seekers could be classified as Portuguese citizens, making them ineligible for refugee status in Australia.

Australia's decision to grant temporary asylum to 18 East Timorese currently applying for refugee status has prompted an official protest from Indonesia, which integrated the former Portuguese colony in 1976.

The 15 men, two women and a child arrived in Australia by boat last May. They said were mistreated by Indonesian authorities.

"My understanding is that Portuguese nationality law does make it reasonably clear that in at least some of these cases they do have Portuguese nationality," Evans told reporters.

"But I'm not trying to prejudge that -- I'm just saying that that's the issue that has to be resolved through the courts."

"If the people in question do have Portuguese nationality as a matter of Portuguese law, then they are obliged to seek refugee status from Portugal, not from Australia," he added.

Evans said East Timorese seeking asylum could still win refugee status in Australia.

Australia recognizes Jakarta's rule of the eastern half of Timor island, but many people born there during Lisbon's rule until the mid-1970s are eligible for Portuguese citizenship.

Evans said the fate of East Timorese seeking asylum would be decided by the government's independent Refugee Review Tribunal and was not up to the government.

"They are not matters of executive (government) discretion or moral judgment, they are questions of law," he said.

The United Nations still regards Portugal as the administering power in East Timor. Lisbon and Jakarta are involved in talks brokered by UN secretary general Boutros Boutros-Ghali to find an internationally acceptable solution to the East Timor issue.