Guantanamo Uygur case reaches Supreme Court
- Source: Global Times
- [12:39 October 21 2009]
- Comments
The US Supreme Court tentatively agreed Tuesday to decide whether 13 Uygurs detained in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba can be released into the US if no country is willing to accept them according to CNN.
Acting after the Supreme Court ruling, a federal judge in Washington said the Uygurs must be released immediately into the US because their continued confinement was unjustified
A federal appeals court, however, said the judge lacked the authority to order detainees released into the country, setting up the new high court challenge.
The Pacific island nation of Palau has agreed in recent weeks to take in 12 of the 13 remaining prisoners, US officials have said.
The men are Uygurs, an ethnic group from Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, a Chinese province bordering Afghanistan, Pakistan and six Central Asian nations. They are allegedly part of the East Turkestan Islamic Movement, a group the US State Department labels a terrorist organization operating in Xinjiang.
The Chinese government urged the US to hand over all remaining Uygurs instead of sending them elsewhere this summer, but the US said it would not send them back to their homeland.
The 13 Chinese Muslims were captured in Pakistan and Afghanistan in 2001 and most of them were cleared by the Pentagon for release in 2003.
