The Australian government is facing two challenges in court on Tuesday over its policies towards asylum seekers.

The High Court is hearing the case of 157 asylum seekers who set off from India by boat. Their lawyers will argue they were illegally detained aboard an Australian customs ship for a month.

A federal court will hear the case of a boy born in Brisbane to asylum seekers.

His lawyers argue that the boy should be given permanent protection - something the government has ruled out.

Australia takes a tough line on asylum seekers who arrive by boat. They are held in offshore processing camps and, if found to be refugees, will be resettled in Papua New Guinea or Cambodia.

In recent months Australian ships have also intercepted boats at sea.

Some have been towed back to Indonesia - the closest jumping-off point for reaching Australia - while people on board others have been transferred into lifeboats and instructed to sail themselves back to where they started.

These policies have been criticised by rights groups and the UN, who say Australia may be failing to meet its obligations towards asylum seekers.

The first court case relates to a group of Sri Lankans, including Tamils, who set out from southern India. They were intercepted by Australian security personnel in July and held on a customs ship at sea for a month, initially in secret.

The case came to light after Australia detained a separate boat of Sri Lankan asylum seekers, screened their asylum claims at sea and returned them to Sri Lanka.

Human rights activists filed a legal challenge aimed at preventing similar handling of the second group.

After a failed attempt by Australia to return them to India, they were briefly taken to the Australian mainland and then transferred to the offshore processing centre in Nauru.

Lawyers for the group will question whether the group, intercepted 16 miles from Christmas Island in Australia's contiguous zone - therefore outside its territorial waters - were falsely imprisoned.

(BBC)