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US Judge Ricardo Urbina Upsets Bombastic BushCo's Applecart
Judge orders Chinese Muslims freed from Gitmo
Chinese, Muslim, Islamofascist terrorists?
Well, well, well. We do declare.
Hands up who knew.
Did you?
WASHINGTON (CNN) -- A federal judge has ordered the immediate release into the United States of 17 Chinese Muslims who have been held for several years in the U.S. military facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.And, good old Judge Ricardo flatly refused to let the matter rest, even at that.
A U.S. District Judge Ricardo Urbina on Tuesday ordered the 17 detainees to appear in his Washington courtroom at 10 a.m. Friday and said he would hold a hearing next week to determine under what conditions they will be settled in the United States.
The government late Tuesday afternoon announced it would file papers shortly with an appeals court seeking an emergency stay to stop the judge's order in its tracks.
The detainees are ethnic Uighurs, from a mostly Muslim autonomous region in western China.
They have been in government custody for seven years and have been cleared for release for the past four years to any country willing to take them. No countries have volunteered.
The judge, visibly impatient, told government lawyers he wants no delays.
"There is a pressing need for them to be released," Urbina declared.
"I have issued an order. I do not want these people interfered with in any way," the judge said.Read the rest of this (sorta semi-refreshing), report right here.
*(Cross posted across at 'appletree')
Labels: America, China, civil liberties, freedom, Guantanamo, Ricardo Urbina, Uighurs, United States
posted by Richard at Wednesday, October 08, 2008
10 Comments:
China has demanded that the prisoners be sent home, but they refuse to be repatriated because they would face persecution at the hands of the Chinese government. The Bush administration has been arguing that it's better that they be persecuted by the American government instead. The ironic bottom line is that the Bush administration's policy of unlimited detention without trial has resulted in 17 Muslim extremists being released in the vicinity of America's capital.
Worst. President. Imaginable.
Wow, Gordo. That is the most ignorant thing I have read in quite a while. Maybe you didn't read the article or you just have a severe case of Bush derangement syndrome. You see, for the past 4 years, the administration has wanted to release them, but no country, except China, wants them. Now, a Clinton appointed judge wants them to be my neighbor. So, if you mean we're still seeing the effects of Clinton a decade later, then yes.... Clinton, Worst President Imaginable, I would have to agree.
'Unlimited detention without trial' means, as I read it, that none of the people incarcerated in Guantanamo have been proven to be extremists, militants or terrorists. Perhaps my understanding is faulty. And perhaps none of these prisoners would want to live in your neighbourhoods anyway.
'Innocent until proven guilty' - Whatever happened to that prime precept of the Magna Carta?
Incidentally, Rick, the Uighurs are from Eastern Turkestan, which was invaded by the Chinese in much the same way that Tibet was, and with the same result. The Uighur language is of Turkic root; nothing like Chinese. The Chinese government is prcticing the same kind of 'assimilation' on the Uighurs as they are on the Tibetans. Hardly surprising that these particular Uighurs don't want to go back there.
*sweetoldlady*
Gordo, I always enjoy reading you input to TOB's blog. Look forward to it even. I've alyas agreed with all you said too. But this time I have to agree with our "sweet old lady" friend.
Al we know for certain about these guys is that their Muslims. You cant say they're guilty of anything before they've had a trial. I'm positive that if Bushco thought they had a hope in hell of making anything stick then they'd have had them in court years ago. Lirearally YEARS ago.
I don't entirely disagree with what you said, Gordo. Bush is without doubt the worst president imaginable.
I used the term "extremist" judiciously. It doesn't mean the same thing as "dangerous." Pat Buchanan is an extremist. Michael Portillo is an extremist. That doesn't make them terrorists.
The fact is, the reason that these Uighurs were in Afghanistan in the first place was to train with the Taliban. And I don't think that it's wrong to call the Taliban an extremist Muslim organization.
But the fact is, having extreme political or religious convictions is not a crime. These men might think that women shouldn't be educated and shouldn't be allowed outside the house without covering themselves, but there's no evidence at all that they will commit any terrorist acts here in the US. That's why I welcome the judge's decision in this case.
And for our anonymous friend who wants to blame this situation on Clinton, the fact is that these were non-combatants who should never have been taken to Guantanamo in the first place. Without the policy of unlimited detention without trial (a policy we share with countries like North Korea and China), they would never have been in a position to petition for release inside the United States.
And frankly, I would rather risk a terrorist attack than live in a country that locks people up forever without so much as a hearing. If you're frightened enough of the terrorists to give up habeus corpus, then you'd probably feel safer living in Turkmenistan or Cuba.
Gordo wrote:
'The fact is, the reason that these Uighurs were in Afghanistan in the firt place was to train with the Taliban.'
Do you have the evidence to support this 'fact', or is it only a 'fact' because the CIA and the US military say it is?
You are entitled to call the Taliban a 'terrorist organisation', in the same way that other people are entitled to call them 'freedom fighters' against what is, in fact, an invading army.
'Charles' is correct in stating that the only thing we know for sure about these guys is that they're Muslims.
And, in fact, I believe that the American, British and Israeli governments are 'terrorist organisations', and that the so-called 'War on Terror' is, in fact, a 'War OF Terror'.
*sweetoldlady*
I say that the Uighurs were in Afghanistan to train with the Taliban because they said so themselves. I understand that they may have said that because they were tortured or threatened, but I think that's the most likely explanation. A lot of the people who were rounded up and imprisoned were in Afghanistan on business or to visit family, but there were 17 of these Uighurs, so that seems unlikely.
And I was careful not to refer to the Taliban as terrorists. As I said, extremists are not necessarily terrorists. In fact, only a tiny fraction of extremists actually commit terrorist acts.
I was just noting the irony of the Bush administration, which has sought to equate Muslim extremism and terrorism, implementing a policy that has resulted in releasing more than a dozen Muslim extremists in the vicinity of the nation's capital.
How about the time when Urbina sent Ana Belen Montes to jail? She is the most treasonous spy against the United States to have been caught in the last 25 years....
Article on the Trial
Wiki on Montes
Clandestine
Yesterday.....
Judge Urbina threw out the case against 5 blackwater security guards who were accused of murdering innocent people in an unprovoked attack in Iraq.
and you say this guy is on their side?
You Americans need to get your brains into gear and stop being told what to think.
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