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Kosovars plan hunger strike for staying in Australia

SYDNEY: About 100 Kosovar refugees said on Sunday they would go on hunger strike after refusing to return to their war-torn homeland.

The refugees refused to board buses bound for Sydney for the first leg of a flight home from an army base near Melbourne. Ali Jahiu, 31, told reporters the adults had decided to fast in a bid to force the government to grant them visas to remain.

He said pregnant women and children would be excluded from the fast.

An Immigration Department spokesman said visas for the refugees, including 65 involved in a High Court claim lodged in Sydney, expired at midnight when they would taken into detention.

The fate of 65 refugees will be decided by Chief Justice Murray Gleeson in the High Court on Monday after they won a weekend reprieve from being sent back to war-torn Kosovo.

Immigration Minister Philip Ruddock said he was confident no Kosovo Albanian refugees returned to their homeland from Australia would be singled out for persecution. "I'm satisfied that they have no claims that would single them out over and above any other Kosovar Albanian for persecution," he told reporters.

More than half the Kosovo Albanians flown to Australia last year had been allowed to extend their stay for medical reasons or because they had an arguable case for special protection visas, he said.ÑAFP