apple news for testing create and delete sbs.com.au - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from sbs.com.au Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
Biloela residents rise in darkness to mark three years since Tamil family taken into detention
Posted
ThuThursday 4
MarMarch 2021 at 8:43pm
The couple s Australian-born daughters Kopika and Tharnicaa have spent three years of their childhood in detention.
(
Print text only
Cancel
As dawn broke over the central Queensland town of Biloela today, more than 20 residents gathered by candlelight to mark three years since a Tamil asylum seeker couple and their two Australian-born children were taken into immigration detention.
Key points:
Priya, Nades and their daughters Kopika and Tharnicaa were removed from their Biloela home and taken into immigration detention three years ago
News
The Tamil family who settled in Biloela, Queensland, with their two Australian-born daughters have now spent more than 1000 days in immigration detention. But legal pressure is attempting to bend political will towards compassion.
By
Rachel Withers.
Tharunicaa and Kopika, the children in the Biloela family detained on Christmas Island.
Credit: AAP Image / Supplied
The Tamil family from Biloela being held on Christmas Island were granted yet another “reprieve” in their battle against deportation this week, with the Federal Court rejecting two appeals – one from the government and one from lawyers for the family. The outcome, being billed as a “win” for the family, leaves them in the same exact limbo they were in before – unable to be removed from Australia while the process remains ongoing, unable to return to Biloela as things stand. There are still two paths available to them – the legal and the ministerial – although neither seems probable, given that