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Freedom, Independence and Democracy for East Turkistan ! |
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E-mail: etic@uygur.org |
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Unlocking Gitmos
2008 - 01 - 16
As a federal judge put it, it's time "to shine the light of constitutionality" on the legal black hole of Guantanamo Bay, the offshore lockup that continues to shame this country, its traditions, and the anti-terrorism fight. Judge Ricardo Urbina took matters beyond denouncing the Guantanamo's poisonous effects. He demanded that the Bush administration bring 17 inmates, all of them Uighur Muslim rebels from western China, to his Washington courtroom. His next step, he indicated, would be to set them free, an action that could come this week, pending 11th-hour appeals from the White House's unbending legal team. The judge's action may be the sharpest setback in an overlong legal slugfest between administration hardliners, who defend the no-rules brig, and civil liberties critics who want the gulag brought under mainstream U.S. court rules. Past decisions by the courts, including the Supreme Court, have undercut the White House stance that the 250-odd inmates don't deserve legal rights. Yet only a comparative handful of inmates have had trials or been released. The judge has raised the stakes by demanding freedom for the Uighur group who haven't been charged after being swept up in a post-9/11 ground war in Afghanistan in 2002. The judge's decision marks another step toward Gitmo's overdue closure. Both presidential candidates want to shut it down. What comes next is legal endgame on what to do with the several hundred inmates. The White House team suggests bringing this group to American shores is unthinkable. What will happen if terrorists beat the charges and are released here? The solution will be messy and unpredictable, thanks to the Bush team's ill-considered decision to create Guantanamo. But the general outlines are clear: Resettle the innocent either here or in a foreign country. The case of the Uighurs may offers a small example. Their ethnic supporters, already here legally, are willing to host them, minimizing fears of outcast Muslims on the loose. The same happy ending may not await every inmate, but it's time to shut down a twilight zone exception to American norms. http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/10/14/EDVS13GOS8.DTL |
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Copyright © www.uygur.org . All rights reserved 20.04.2009 01:42 A. Karakash |
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