The fight for Chagos
Updated on 10 November 2007
Chagos Islanders evicted from their homes by the British government 40 years ago staged a demonstration outside Downing Street today.
The exiled Chagossians handed over a letter demanding the Foreign Office halt its appeal against a ruling that would allow them to return to the Archipelago.
Some 2,000 residents of the British territory were removed in the 1960s and 70s when Britain leased the island of Diego Garcia to the US to use as a military base.
The Court of Appeal has ruled that the exiled families have the right to go back to the island, but Ministers have applied to take the case to the House of Lords for a final decision.
Hengride Permal, of the Chagossian Islands Community Association said: "We want the government to pay us compensation for 40 years of pain and suffering, and 40 years of exile.
"We want Gordon Brown to take action and withdraw the appeal.
"We want to go home to our island."
In 2000, the High Court ruled that a 1971 Immigration Ordinance banning people without permits from entering or remaining in the colony was unlawful.
But in 2004, the Government changed the procedure under which the eviction was ordered, using its so-called royal prerogative to establish an Order in Council.
Last year, the High Court ruled that the Government had acted illegally in removing the islanders from their homes.
In a damning verdict, Lord Justice Hooper and Mr Justice Cresswell condemned as "repugnant" the British Government's decision to "exile a whole population" from the Indian Ocean.
As such, the judges ruled that the orders made under the royal prerogative to prevent their return were irrational and unlawful.
Ministers attempted to get that ruling overturned in the Court of Appeal.
But the three sitting judges, headed by the Master of the Rolls, Sir Anthony Clarke, condemned Government tactics stopping the Chagossians' return as unlawful and an abuse of power.
