Thank you for helping free the Uighurs

Sun, 01/25/2009 - 7:35pm

Update June 10, 2009: Palau Agrees to Take the Uighurs

We're leaving the rest of this page unchanged for our archives.

April 24: Los Angeles Times and other news outlets report as many as 7 Uighurs will be released into US.

April 1, New York Times: Chinese Inmates at Guantánamo Pose a Dilemma

Uighur attorney Sabin Willett on Democracy Now

Frontline (PBS) video on Uighurs at Guantanamo

Call President Obama and tell him:

You support the Executive Order to Shut Down Guantanamo.
You request that, as a first and immediate step, the Obama administration should release the 17 Uighurs into the United States.

White House: 202-456-1111

President Obama, in his Executive Order to Close Guantanamo by January 22, 2010, has detailed a process to review all of the cases of the men imprisoned there. There are a number of men in Guantanamo for who will face transfer to a country where they fear persecution or torture. This includes seventeen men from China who face certain persecution, potentially including torture or death, if forcibly repatriated to China. These men are of the Uighur minority – among the most persecuted peoples in China. The U.S. has admitted that it has tried to find safe third countries for these men since as early as 2002 – the year they were transferred to Guantánamo.

For the seventeen Uighurs, there is no need to review whether they should be imprisoned. The Executive Branch, the judiciary, and members of congress all have acknowledged that the Uighurs should be released. The issue for the Obama Administration is not whether the Uighurs should be released, but rather where they should be released.

In September of 2008, the government formally conceded that none of the seventeen men is an enemy combatant. On October 7th, 2008, US District Court Judge Ricardo M. Urbina held that their continued imprisonment was unlawful and ordered the government to bring all seventeen Uighurs to his courtroom for release into the United States on appropriate conditions. (This case was overturned on appeal because the judge did not have this authority.)

We join with the Uighurs' attorneys in urging the government to release these innocent men in the only place they can be released – the United States. Bringing the Uighurs here is an important early step toward carrying out President Obama's Executive Order. The executive should proceed directly with the transfer of the Uighurs by direct Executive action.

Detailed resettlement arrangements, which include the provision of refugee services and reasonable release conditions, have already been put in place and submitted to the Court.

We urge President Obama to end these astonishing imprisonments, signaling to the American people, and to the world, that the administration is determined to act rather than merely speak, and begin, in some small way, to do justice for these men.

Use this information to call President Obama: 202-456-1111. Thank him for his Executive Order to close Guantanamo and ask for the prompt release of these seventeen men.

March 18, 2009: Some Guantanamo prisoners could be released in US: "Holder said it was possible the 17 Chinese Muslims [Uighurs] who have been held for years at Guantanamo, and two or three others prisoners, could be freed in the United States."

February 18, 2009: AFP: Uighurs denied release in United States: court ruling

February 5, 2009: New York Times: Beijing to World -- Don't Take Chinese from Gitmo

January 23, 2009: Letter about Uighurs from attorney Sabin Willett to Secretary of Defense Gates and Attorney General-designate Holder (Also: Uighurs’ lawyers urge immediate release)

January 22, 2009: AFP: Anonymous White House source "'can't imagine' returning Uighurs to China"

November 20, 2008: Conservatives Call On Bush To Free Uighurs

Some things you can do

Join our daily vigil in Washington, DC, across from the White House, 11am-1pm.
Join people across the nation in phoning the White House (202-456-1111) Feb 2-6, thanking Obama for the Executive Order closing Guantanamo, and asking for the Uighurs' release.
Uighurs half-page flyer, PDF: English or Mandarin/English
Contact us to get more involved in the 100 Days Campaign.

The powerful say “be patient,” and the powerless have to wait.

Uighur Bios

Three information sources for these men are profiles by the Center for Constitutional Rights (PDF format), Andy Worthington's profiles in The Guantanamo Files, and the New York Times' Guantanamo Docket.

Yusef Abbas. More information: NYT.

Abdulghappar Abdulrahman (Abdul Ghappar Abdul Rahman) is an ethnic Uighur who has been cleared for release from Guantanamo. He is thirty-five years old. Abdulghappar was arrested in Pakistan, after fleeing, under bombardment, from a Uighur village in Afghanistan, and subsequently sold by Pakistani bounty hunters to the United States for approximately $5,000. Five of the Uighurs with whom Abdulghappar fled Afghanistan and was captured in Pakistan were later determined to be non-combatants and released to Albania in 2006. But after more than six years of indefinite imprisonment, the many broken promises of freedom that he has received from personnel at Guantanamo, and daily humiliation and abuse, Abdulghappar is losing hope that he will ever be released. More info: CCR profile (PDF), NYT.

Emam Abdulahat. More information: NYT.

Hajiakbar Abdulghupur. More information: NYT.

Abdullah Abdulqadirakhun. More information: NYT.

Dawut Abdureheim. More information: NYT.

Hassan Anvar. More information: NYT.

Saidullah Khalik. More information: NYT.

Arkin Mahmud. More information: NYT.

Bahtiyar Mahnut is a Chinese Uighur, a Muslim minority from East Turkestan, the Uighur homeland in far western China. Bahityar and other Uighur fled for safety from a Uighur village in Afghanistan after the bombing campaign began, and were turned over to the United States by bounty-hunters. Five among them were classified as non-enemy combatants and, years later, released to Albania; seventeen remain in Guantanamo today. More information: PDF from CCR, NYT.

Abdul Helil Mamut. More information: NYT.

Ahmed Mohamed. More information: NYT.

Nag Mohammed. More information: NYT.

Adel Noori is a Chinese Uighur, a Muslim minority from East Turkestan, the Uyghur homeland in far western China. Adel Noori had been well-connected to the literary and progressive political movements in East Turkestan, his friends suffered arrest and imprisonment in China because of their intellectual pursuits, and Adel is wanted in China for "political crimes" because of his involvement in a political demonstration. He was living in a house in Kabul when forced to flee the war only to fall into the arms of bounty-hunters. More information: PDF from CCR, NYT.

Houzaifa Parhat fled China seeking a better life. He was living in a Uighur village in Afghanistan when he and seventeen others were forced to flee for safety after the U.S. bombing campaign began in Afghanistan. All eighteen were turned over to the United States by bounty-hunters. Five among them were classified as non-enemy combatants and, years later, released to Albania. Though his circumstances are virtually identical to those classified as non-enemy combatants, Huzaifa was classified in his CSRT as an enemy combatant. Though he has long ago been cleared for release, he remains in Guantánamo today. More information: PDF from CCR, NYT.

Abdul Razak. More information: NYT.

Ahmad Tourson. More information: NYT.