October 08, 2008
AN American judge today ordered the release into the US of a group of Chinese Muslims once suspected of terrorism who are being held in Guantanamo Bay prison, a court official said.
The US Government declared the group of 17 Uighurs to no longer be "enemy combatants" this year but had maintained it could continue to hold them in Guantanamo if no other country accepted them.
China has urged the US to repatriate the "terrorist suspects" but Washington has resisted due to fears the group would be tortured upon return.
For several years, the United States has attempted to persuade other countries to resettle the Uighurs, part of an ethnic group which populates much of western China that Beijing considers seditious.
Only Albania has agreed to do so, offering to take five of them in 2006.
The US Justice Department said it would appeal against the court's ruling. "The Government does not believe that it is appropriate to have these foreign nationals removed from government custody and released into the United States."
Most of the Uighurs were turned over to the US from Pakistan in late 2001 in exchange for bounties.
The group was living in a self-contained camp in Afghanistan when the US-led coalition bombing campaign began in October 2001.
They fled to the mountains but were turned over to Pakistani authorities, who in turn handed them to the United States.
Human rights groups have campaigned against their continued detention.
"The Uighur detainees have been held at Guantanamo for nearly seven years, even though the government acknowledges they should be freed," said Jennifer Daskal, senior counterterrorism counsel at Human Rights Watch, yesterday.
"Since Washington has failed to resettle the Uighurs elsewhere, it should parole them into the United States," she said.
A lawyer for the detainees said in January that the Uighurs were being held in extremely brutal solitary confinement, which entailed spending at least 22 hours a day alone in all-metal cells with no natural light or air.
The government had imposed on the men "a regimen of isolation and cruelty unheard of in penal or military law, and unknown to civilised people", a court motion from lawyer Sabin Willett said.
The Guantanamo Bay prison on Cuba is run by the US Navy and has been used since 2002 to hold "war-on-terror" suspects.
AN American judge today ordered the release into the US of a group of Chinese Muslims once suspected of terrorism who are being held in Guantanamo Bay prison, a court official said.
The US Government declared the group of 17 Uighurs to no longer be "enemy combatants" this year but had maintained it could continue to hold them in Guantanamo if no other country accepted them.
China has urged the US to repatriate the "terrorist suspects" but Washington has resisted due to fears the group would be tortured upon return.
For several years, the United States has attempted to persuade other countries to resettle the Uighurs, part of an ethnic group which populates much of western China that Beijing considers seditious.
Only Albania has agreed to do so, offering to take five of them in 2006.
The US Justice Department said it would appeal against the court's ruling. "The Government does not believe that it is appropriate to have these foreign nationals removed from government custody and released into the United States."
Most of the Uighurs were turned over to the US from Pakistan in late 2001 in exchange for bounties.
The group was living in a self-contained camp in Afghanistan when the US-led coalition bombing campaign began in October 2001.
They fled to the mountains but were turned over to Pakistani authorities, who in turn handed them to the United States.
Human rights groups have campaigned against their continued detention.
"The Uighur detainees have been held at Guantanamo for nearly seven years, even though the government acknowledges they should be freed," said Jennifer Daskal, senior counterterrorism counsel at Human Rights Watch, yesterday.
"Since Washington has failed to resettle the Uighurs elsewhere, it should parole them into the United States," she said.
A lawyer for the detainees said in January that the Uighurs were being held in extremely brutal solitary confinement, which entailed spending at least 22 hours a day alone in all-metal cells with no natural light or air.
The government had imposed on the men "a regimen of isolation and cruelty unheard of in penal or military law, and unknown to civilised people", a court motion from lawyer Sabin Willett said.
The Guantanamo Bay prison on Cuba is run by the US Navy and has been used since 2002 to hold "war-on-terror" suspects.
Source: The Australian
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