Goodbye Guantanamo
Published on October 7, 2008
In a historic blow to the Bush Administration, federal judge orders release of 17 Chinese Muslims held at Guantanamo.
U.S. District Judge Ricardo M. Urbina chastised the Bush Justice Department today when he ordered seventeen Chinese Muslims (Uighurs) to be expeditiously released from their captivity at the U.S. government prison in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. Although a succession of U.S. Supreme Court
and Appeals Court rulings set the stage for Urbina’s dramatic ruling today, this was the first time that a U.S. court directly ordered the release of one or more Guantanamo prisoners.
As we reported last July, the case dealing with the specific circumstances of the Uighur captives (they are a Muslim minority from western China) was brought forward as Huzaifa Parhat v. (U.S. Secretary of Defense) Robert M. Gates, et al.
The case involved 17 Uighurs who happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time when, after the September 11th attacks, the U.S. launched attacks against suspected Al-Qaeda bases in Afghanistan. The camp where Parhat and his Chinese companions were training to take up arms against the Chinese government was bombed. He and the 16 other Uighers fled to Pakistan where they were taken into custody by Pakistani authorities, who then turned them over to the U.S. military. In June 2002, Parhat was transferred to the U.S. detention camp at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and he and the others have been there ever since. Last June, an appeals court ruled that evidence against the Uighur prisoners was unreliable. Parhat and the other Uighers have always denied they were enemies of Americans and were training with any intention to harm Americans.
According to media accounts, Judge Urbina reacted angrily today when, after ordering the release of the men, the Justice Department sought a stay to appeal his decision. What happens next remains to be seen but lawyers for the Uighurs expressed confidence to reporters that an appeals court would not interfere with the release of the men to relatives in the United States.
The Washington Post story on today’s ruling can be found here.
The New York Times story by William Glaberson can be found here.