US court of appeal stops release of 17 Uighurs from China who are being held in Guantanamo

The Society for Threatened Peoples (GfbV) has charged the US government of grossly violating the human rights of innocent victims in their "War on Terror”. "The way in which Washington is blocking the release of the 17 Uighurs from Guantanamo is unworthy of a democratic state”, criticised the GfbV Asia consultant, Ulrich Delius, on Thursday. An application by the US government before a court of appeal today has stopped the release of the Uighur detainees, which had been ruled by a US federal judge on Tuesday. The Ministry of Justice has now been granted the opportunity to present sound arguments within one week to show why their release cannot be legally upheld.

Their arrest and delivery to Cuba have turned the 17 members of the minority from China into "stateless persons” and destroyed their lives. These men can never return to their home-country because they are threatened there with torture and the death penalty. But no other country is prepared to take them for fear of the reaction of the Chinese government. Yet instead of apologizing to these victims of the War on Terror and their families for the years of imprisonment and violations of human rights in Guantanamo the US government refuses these prisoners any humane treatment.

The lawyer of the US Ministry of Justice, John C. O’Quinn, spoke out against the planned release of the prisoners with the argument that such a decision could endanger relations with other states. He was thereby referring to China’s demand that the Uighurs be sent straight back to the People’s Republic.

"The US Ministry of Justice has a rather strange judicial conception in trying to press for detainment where there is no reason relevant under criminal law, merely making a reference to foreign affairs”, said Delius. On 30th September the US Ministry of Justice had stated that the Uighurs being held in Guantanamo were not to be seen as "enemy combatants”.