Anti-terror war has turned Uigurs into stateless people

Germany should for humanitarian reasons take 125 innocent Uigur Guantanamo prisoners from China. With this appeal the Society for Threatened People (GfbV) turned to Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier on Tuesday. "It is tragic that these dissidents must still live in Guantanamo, although the US authorities have been convinced for three years that they were wrongfully accused of supporting terrorism," says the paper of the GfbV. It is a scandal for the western world that for fear of protests from the Chinese government no democratic state dares to take the Uigur refugees. So dissenters have been turned "de facto" into "stateless persons". Yet they had to undergo in Guantanamo a terrible ordeal. They were in the year 2002 with the agreement of the US authorities interrogated and mishandled by Chinese security forces. China had several times called for the release of the Uigurs to China. This was however refused by the US authorities since they are threatened by the death penalty in the People´s Republic. Uigur dissidents, who work abroad for more autonomy for the Xinjiiang area and democratic rights for Uigurs, are under blanket suspicion by the Chinese authorities of "terrorism". If they are caught by Chinese security forces they are condemned to death in summary proceedings and executed. A number of Uigurs have already been deported from Pakistan to China and sentenced in unjust trials and executed.

The US government has since winter 2003 been trying without success to get the Uigur Guantanamo prisoners taken by a third land. In 2004 already the German government refused to take these people as refugees. According to press reports the US government has now made a new request in Berlin for the Uigurs to be taken by Germany. For there are already several hundred Uigur refugees from China living in the Munich area. For further information and interviews please approach the GfbV Asia expert, Ulrich Delius.