FOUR activists holed up in the Australian Embassy since February 7 have set a record for the longest sit-in in a foreign mission during a two-year campaign to free East Timor. The group - three men and one woman - must also take the prize for being the most undecided. They have yet to respond to offers of safe passage to Portugal and have not applied for Australian visas. Yesterday marked three weeks to the day since the four - part of an initial group of nine - began the protest. The group split up on Sunday when one of two members on hunger strike slipped in the bathroom and suffered a head injury. That person, the other hunger striker and a third member then spent the night night in hospital accompanied by two other members of the group. The five were discharged the next day before being held for questioning by Indonesian authorities who released them on Tuesday. The previous record was set by a group of 29 East Timorese who staged a 12-day sit-in in the car park of the United States Embassy in November 1994. But while that action ended with the protesters accepting asylum in Portugal, the plans of the latest group remain in doubt. But Australian Embassy spokesman Joanne Eyre said Canberra had refused applications for asylum by the four saying they had provided 'no basis for the claim'. Initially, it was thought the group might have planned to embarrass the Australian Government ahead of Saturday's elections, a rumour seemingly borne out by their long stay in the compound. It is also felt the group may have timed the protest to coincide with the European Union-Association of Southeast Asian Nations meeting in Bangkok. Neither theory could be confirmed with East Timorese sources, and the asylum-seekers have remained silent on the issue.
