From Reuters News Agency.
World War Two internee wins compensation
Tue Oct 10, 2006 1:36 PM BST
LONDON (Reuters) - An octogenarian woman imprisoned aged 17 as a Briton by
Japanese troops in World War Two but denied compensation by Britain on the
grounds of her parentage, finally won her case on Tuesday -- and 13,900
pounds.
Diana Elias and her family were dragged from their beds in 1941 by invading
Japanese troops and held for four years in atrocious conditions in Hong
Kong's Stanley Prison.
Held by the Japanese as a British citizen because Hong Kong was part of the
British Empire, Elias was in 2000 excluded from a British government "debt
of honour" internee compensation scheme because her parents were from India
and Iraq.
This, argued the Ministry of Defence, meant she had no "bloodlink" to
Britain.
But the High Court on Tuesday dismissed appeals by the MoD against last
year's finding that it had been guilty of unlawful indirect discrimination
against her under the Race Relations Act.
"It is perhaps right that it should be by reason of that Act that the
acknowledged debt of honour owed to prisoners of war incarcerated in the Far
East should now be appropriately discharged," said Lord Justice Longmore.
Elias, now 82 and living in North London, was in court to hear a judgement
that opens the door to a host of claims worth an estimated 24 million pounds
from other former internees who have been similarly denied compensation.
Details of the horrors she suffered in Stanley Prison were so shocking that
when the case was originally heard in the High Court only the parties to the
case and the judge were allowed to see a statement detailing them.
The court dismissed a cross-appeal by Elias who had argued that there should
be a finding not of indirect discrimination against her but direct
discrimination.
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Merdeka, Merdeka, Merdeka,
from the HD Committee and its decision.