The Human Rights Blog

Lawyers Demand Release of Chinese Muslims

Court Documents Allege Lengthy Detainment at Guantanamo Is Part of Deal With
Beijing
By Josh White
Washington Post Staff Writer

Tuesday, December 5, 2006; A13

Attorneys for a group of Chinese Muslims held for nearly five years in the
U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, filed suit yesterday, asking that
the men be released immediately and alleging that they have been held as
part of a political deal between the United States and China.

Citing new laws that allow detainees to challenge their status as "enemy
combatants," the lawyers argue that their seven clients -- ethnic Uighurs
(pronounced wee-gurs) -- have never taken up arms against the United States or its
allies. They contend that the men have been labeled wrongfully as terrorist
suspects because they oppose the Communist Chinese government.
In a 58-page filing at the Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia
Circuit, the lawyers argue that the Uighurs have been held since early 2002 as a
way to win Chinese acquiescence for the U.S. invasion of Iraq.
The lawyers -- Sabin Willett and Susan Baker Manning -- allege in the court
documents that their clients' detention was one of several demands the Chinese
government solicited in mid-2002 as the United States was seeking global
support for toppling Saddam Hussein.

U.S. officials labeled the East Turkistan Islamic Movement (ETIM) -- a group
that includes Uighur separatists who want their own nation in western China
-- a terrorist organization in August 2002 after diplomatic discussions with
China about Iraq, the lawyers allege.

"In the crisis atmosphere of the time, the interests of a few dozen refugees
paled beside the urgency of the Administration's war plans," the lawsuit
said. "The Iraq deal sealed the fate of the seven petitioners here. More than
four years have passed. Long-discarded pawns in a diplomatic match between
superpowers, petitioners today remain illegally imprisoned at Guantanamo."
Former State Department officials acknowledged in interviews that they
negotiated with China about placing ETIM and another group on a list of known
terrorist organizations, and that ETIM was added after intelligence reports
indicated the group had killed innocent people. The officials said, however, that
labeling the group as terrorists had no effect on Uighurs already in U.S.
custody, who were believed to be cooperating with the Taliban and al-Qaeda near
Tora Bora, Afghanistan.

Then-Deputy Secretary of State Richard L. Armitage met with Chinese officials
in Beijing in late August 2002 and discussed the Iraq situation with them.
He said at the time that ETIM was placed on the foreign terrorist list after
months of discussions with China. He also said he made clear that China needed
to respect the minority Uighur population.

"They had been after us to put ETIM on the list," Armitage said in a recent
interview. He said the decision did not have anything to do with winning
China's tacit approval on the Iraq invasion. "But at the time, we didn't know when
we were going to invade Iraq. It was done in response to information
gathered by the intelligence group."

The Uighurs have been a diplomatic headache for the United States. U.S.
officials working to negotiate the release of five other Uighurs held at
Guantanamo who were determined not to be a threat to U.S. interests refused to return
them to China out of concern they could be tortured or killed. More than two
dozen countries declined requests to take them in, and the United States has
been unwilling to allow them to come here.

Earlier this year, those five Uighurs were released to a U.N. compound in
Albania, where they remain virtual prisoners.

Pierre-Richard Prosper, who formerly led U.S. negotiations with other
countries over Guantanamo detainees, said that China wanted custody of the Uighurs
but that the United States staved off Beijing because of human rights
concerns. "We tried for many months to reach an understanding with China regarding
the fate of the Uighurs and were unable to do so," he said.

More than a dozen Uighurs are still in Guantanamo. U.S. officials have
determined them to be enemy combatants because of their participation in an
alleged terrorist training camp in Afghanistan, which all fled when the United
States started bombing the area after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.
The Uighurs have told military court officials they were not allied with the
Taliban and are sympathetic to the United States, which they view as a
liberator. They said they were living in a small community in Afghanistan after
fleeing oppression in China.

According to military tribunal records and court filings, the men were lured
to a mosque in Pakistan, where they were arrested and later turned over to
Pakistani authorities. Willett said he believes the men were sold to the United
States for sizable bounties and were sent to Guantanamo along with many
other detainees captured there.

The lawyers challenge the way the Uighurs were determined to be enemy
combatants, arguing that their encampment in Afghanistan did not make them a party
to hostilities. The Uighurs have said the United States allowed a Chinese
delegation to visit and interrogate them after their capture, and that the
Chinese threatened them. A U.S. official confirmed that the Chinese were allowed
to question the Uighurs.

"It is amazing to me that the U.S. has agreed to, in effect, hold political
prisoners for China in exchange for anything," Manning said. "That goes
against everything that we, I thought, stood for in this country."

Staff researcher Julie Tate contributed to this report.

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Petition for Immediate Relief

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