THE AY FAMILY, Kurdish refugees from Turkey, were detained for 13 months in 2002 as the British government attempted to return them to Germany, where they had first made a claim for asylum.
At the time the youngest, Medya, was just seven when the family were arrested and
locked up in 2002, Dilovan was 11, Newroz was 12 and Beriwan was 13.But the Ay family had some high profile backers who pledged to support them in the community including actor Colin Firth, Harry Potter author J.K.Rowling and Australia's Oscar winning writer Tom Keneally, author of Schindler's Ark which was made into the film Schindler's List by Steven Spielberg, the Devils Playground the film based on Keneally's life story, and The Chant of Jimmy Blacksmith.
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| JK Rowling |
Keneally, who trained to be a Catholic priest has been a long time supporter of asylum seekers both in Australia and abroad and now after a ten year campaign the four Ay children have settled out of court last week for a compensation claim rumoured to be in the high six figures.
Since their election, the Coalition government of David Cameron has pledged to end the practice of locking up child refugees.
In 2003 Keneally who lives on Sydney's Northern beaches said : "In a liberal democracy you can only maintain a policy of locking children up behind barbed wire by spreading lies and demonising the dispossessed of the earth. In the future, these children will tell their stories. There's bound to be literature that comes out of it, and people will gasp and say, 'How did that policy ever get through?'
