Background:

The Jaya Lestari was seized by the Indonesian Navy on October 18, 2009 after Kevin Rudd phoned Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono and personally requested the Indonesian government to intercept it. The boat carried 255 Tamil asylum seekers fleeing the civil war in Sri Lanka, amongst them 31 children, 29 women (one of whom is about to give birth) and 195 men. Since then the boat has been moored in Merak in Western Java.

On 23 December 2009, a 29 year old man, George Jacob Samuel Christin, died on the boat after vomiting blood for two days and being refused medical treatment by Indonesian authorities. One man who obtained visa application forms for Australia was arrested and put into detention in Indonesia.

Several asylum seekers have left the boat voluntarily, but the bulk of the passengers have refused to disembark in Indonesia, fearing imprisonment and deportation by the Indonesian authorities. A significant proportion of the group have already been assessed as genuine refugees by the UNHCR. All have fled the aftermath of a brutal civil war in Sri Lanka, which has resulted in hundreds of thousands of ethnic Tamils becoming internally displaced within the country.

Tens of thousands of Tamils are still being held in squalid military internment camps, subjected to rape and torture at the whim of the Sri Lankan Army, as confirmed by the Red Cross and Amnesty International.