Uighur prisoners want to force legal entry to USA

The Supreme Court of the USA must decide in June 2009 on whether the US authorities will have to allow the Uighurs from the Guantanamo prison camp to enter the USA. The Society for Threatened Peoples (GfbV) pointed out on Tuesday that a petition has been lodged at the Supreme Court by 14 of the 17 Uighurs held on Cuba. "The US authorities are clearly reacting nervously at the prospect of the court case since they fear a legal defeat,” said the GfbV Asia consultant, Ulrich Delius. The Uighurs, who were exonerated from the charge of terrorism, are being represented by leading lawyers from the USA. The lawyers are working in a voluntary capacity for humanitarian reasons and in the interests of justice. "This can only mean that the lawyers are convinced of the innocence of the Uighurs,” said Delius. "They would hardly give such support to people they presumed to be terrorists.”

In order to prevent a defeat in the court-room the US military authorities are doing their best to give the impression that the Uighurs now enjoy all the delights of freedom, reported the GfbV. At the Whitsun weekend the order was given that the Uighur prisoners be issued with laptops. At the beginning of the year they were transferred to the Iguana camp inside the Guantanamo complex, where the prison conditions are considerably milder. They can now plant their own vegetables.

"But even laptops and courgettes grown by themselves make no difference to the fact that it was the US authorities which illegally took freedom away from the Uighurs and turned them into stateless persons”, criticised Delius. To the present day the US authorities prevent visitors of the Uighurs from bringing photos or letters of the prisoners from Guantanamo.

In October 2008 a civil court in Washington ordered that the Guantanamo Uighurs should be transferred to the USA. The Bush government successfully appealed against this judgment. The lawyers of the Uighurs lodged a petition to the Supreme Court of the USA, concerning which the nine judges have shortly to deliberate. On Friday of last week the Obama administration reinforced the arguments of the Bush government, pleading for a rejection of the petition on the grounds that the plaintiffs were no longer seen as enemy fighters, not really being kept in custody and enjoying all possible relaxations.