Australia denies Bali orphans access to father

The Canberra government was condemned as heartless yesterday for refusing to allow two Indonesian children who lost their mother in the Bali bomb to enter Australia to see their father, who is being held in an immigration detention centre.

Sadfar Sammaki, aged seven, and his sister, Sara, three, were rescued by a charity from a red-light district of Bali where they had been living since the terrorist attack. The charity organised passports for them and they applied for visas to visit their father, Ibrahim Sammaki, who has been in detention since arriving in Australia two years ago.

Their mother, Endang, was on a trip to Bali to seek legal advice about her husband's position when the bomb exploded and she died three days later.

The children applied for visas on compassionate grounds, but were turned down by the Australian embassy in Jakarta. Philip Ruddock, Australia's Immigration Minister, said officials suspected they would not return home afterwards.

The decision coincided with a Federal Court ruling that dealt a serious blow to the government's controversial practice of detaining all asylum-seekers including children.Lawyers said the judgment could force the release of hundreds of people.

Judges ruled that the government wrongfully imprisoned a Palestinian aslyum-seeker, Akram al-Masri, while he awaited deportation after his application for refugee status was rejected. Mr Masri was left in limbo after Israel refused to allow him to return to the Gaza Strip. Syria, Egypt and Jordan also declined to grant a visa.

Mr Ruddock had twice appealed against lower court decisions, and he is expected to appeal again. Mr Masri's lawyer, Jeremy Moore, said: "All three judges agreed that the original decision was correct, and that the federal government can't just lock people up and throw away the key."

Current policy is to detain all asylum-seekers who arrive in Australia. Many find themselves imprisoned for years in remote camps ringed by barbed-wire fences. The centres have been criticised as inhumane by church groups, Amnesty International and the United Nations.

Mr Sammaki is an Iranian who fled his homeland after the fall of the Shah. He entered Indonesia illegally, where he met and married Endang nine years ago. Seeking a better life for the family, Mr Sammaki travelled by boat to Australia and ended up in Woomera, a camp in the South Australian desert which recently closed. Detainees were then transferred to a new centre, Baxter.

The charity, Zero To One, said the children were desperate to see their father.

Sadfar and Sara are stranded in Bali, where the charity says it cannot look after them indefinitely. Their lawyer, Danny Hyams, said he had made clear to Australian authorities that they would return to Indonesia after the visit.

Australia believes that either Indonesia or Iran should take the family. But Jakarta is unwilling to help. It refused to allow Mr Sammaki to visit his dying wife, saying he could not enter Indonesia without a guarantee that he would return to detention.