Six Guantanamo Uygur detainees released to Palau

• Source: Global Times
• [07:25 November 03 2009]
• Comments

By Sun Wei

The US released six Chinese Uygurs from the Guantanamo Bay prison camp to the Pacific nation of Palau Monday, as US President Barack Obama faces mounting challenges to meet his self-assigned deadline to close the controversial prison by January.

The ex-Guantanamo detainees arrived Monday local time in Palau "to begin rebuilding their lives in freedom," AFP quoted New York-based lawyers for three of the former prisoners as saying.

The six Chinese Uygurs were identified as Ahmad Tourson, Abdul Ghappar Abdul Rahman, Edham Mamet, Anwar Hassan, Dawut Abdurehim and Adel Noori. They were among 22 Uygurs who were living at a self-contained camp in Afghanistan when the US-led invasion of the country began in October 2001.

"The resettlement of these (alleged) terrorists has long been a conflicting point between China and the US," Liu Weidong, an expert on American Studies at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, told the Global Times.

China wants the men returned home to be tried, saying the alleged terrorists belong to an Islamic separatist movement, while the US fears that they face persecution if returned to China.

"Rebiya Kadeer and her supporters have glamorized that the detainees' only end in China is the death penalty," Liu added.

Almost all netizens on sina.com opposed the move by the US Monday, saying it was to "covert support for separatists," "they should be extradited back to China" and "the US has no right to interfere in Chinese laws". "There is no sense for the US to lead anti-terrorism activities since the US is protecting Uygur terrorists," the netizens alleged.

"Obama's plan of sending the Uygurs to US allies abroad failed as Australia, Canada and Germany declined to accept any of the captives," Liu said, adding that Obama's alternative plan of sending them to Virginia, the largest Uygur community in the US, was also aborted, as it was opposed determinedly by the US Congress.

Matthew Olsen, executive director of the Guantanamo Review Task Force, struggled to persuade other countries to take some of the captives. Five of the captives were released in Albania in 2006 and four were resettled in Bermuda this year.

Palau, which has no diplomatic relations with China, has agreed to take up to 12 Uygurs. The decision aroused unease, expressed by many of the tiny country's 21,000 residents.

Since the notorious jail was opened in January 2002 under former president George W. Bush, over 550 detainees have been transferred to other countries.

Agencies contributed to this story