UK Loses Appeal Over "Hell on Earth" Detention of Tamil Asylum Seekers

A British court has rejected a government appeal, confirming that dozens of Tamil asylum seekers were unlawfully detained for years on a remote military island. On Tuesday, appeal court judges in London backed a landmark ruling from exactly one year ago. That ruling found the UK had unlawfully held the migrants on Diego Garcia, a UK-US military base in the Indian Ocean. The Tamil group arrived on Diego Garcia after a shipwreck in 2021. They were trying to reach Canada to seek asylum. Instead, they were detained on the island for three years. A judge previously described their detention conditions as "hell on Earth." The appeal was brought by the commissioner of the British Indian Ocean Territory. The court's rejection means the original ruling, that the detention was unlawful, now stands.