The US yesterday appeared to reject a demand by China that all Chinese prisoners at Guantanamo Bay be handed back following US President Barack Obama’s decision to close the “war on terror” jail.
Beijing had called for the return of 17 Chinese prisoners that it said were part of a terror group seeking an independent homeland in the northwest of the country.
“These people are members of the East Turkestan Islamic Movement [ETIM] terrorist organization on a sanctioned list of the UN Security Council,” Chinese Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Jiang Yu (姜瑜) told reporters. “They should be handed over to China, which will handle the case by law.”
Obama signed an executive order on Thursday calling for the closure of Guantanamo Bay within a year, in a reversal of the policy of his predecessor George W. Bush.
But his administration yesterday said it could not imagine returning the detainees, from Xinjiang, home to 8.3 million Uighurs, a Muslim minority speaking a Turkic language.
Xinjiang is a vast area of mountains and deserts that borders Central Asia, and many of its Uighur population say they have suffered decades of repression under communist rule.
Uighur dissidents and some human rights groups have said China has exaggerated the threat from ETIM and other alleged terrorists in Xinjiang to justify a harsh security crackdown there.
“I cannot imagine that we would support transferring the Uighurs back to China,” a senior Obama administration official said on condition of anonymity.
“We are not going to transfer detainees to countries that will mistreat them,” the official said.
Jiang reiterated China’s opposition to other nations taking in Chinese Guantanamo Bay prisoners, after some European governments indicated their willingness to resettle detainees if the US closed the prison.
“China is against any country accepting those people and they should be returned to China as soon as possible,” she said.
In 2006, Albania granted asylum to five Chinese Uighurs after they were released from Guantanamo, much to the anger of China.
ANGER: A video shared online showed residents in a neighborhood confronting the national security minister, attempting to drag her toward floodwaters Argentina’s port city of Bahia Blanca has been “destroyed” after being pummeled by a year’s worth of rain in a matter of hours, killing 13 and driving hundreds from their homes, authorities said on Saturday. Two young girls — reportedly aged four and one — were missing after possibly being swept away by floodwaters in the wake of Friday’s storm. The deluge left hospital rooms underwater, turned neighborhoods into islands and cut electricity to swaths of the city. Argentine Minister of National Security Patricia Bullrich said Bahia Blanca was “destroyed.” The death toll rose to 13 on Saturday, up from 10 on Friday, authorities
OPTIMISTIC: A Philippine Air Force spokeswoman said the military believed the crew were safe and were hopeful that they and the jet would be recovered A Philippine Air Force FA-50 jet and its two-person crew are missing after flying in support of ground forces fighting communist rebels in the southern Mindanao region, a military official said yesterday. Philippine Air Force spokeswoman Colonel Consuelo Castillo said the jet was flying “over land” on the way to its target area when it went missing during a “tactical night operation in support of our ground troops.” While she declined to provide mission specifics, Philippine Army spokesman Colonel Louie Dema-ala confirmed that the missing FA-50 was part of a squadron sent “to provide air support” to troops fighting communist rebels in
Two daughters of an Argentine mountaineer who died on an icy peak 40 years ago have retrieved his backpack from the spot — finding camera film inside that allowed them a glimpse of some of his final experiences. Guillermo Vieiro was 44 when he died in 1985 — as did his climbing partner — while descending Argentina’s Tupungato lava dome, one of the highest peaks in the Americas. Last year, his backpack was spotted on a slope by mountaineer Gabriela Cavallaro, who examined it and contacted Vieiro’s daughters Guadalupe, 40, and Azul, 44. Last month, the three set out with four other guides
Local officials from Russia’s ruling party have caused controversy by presenting mothers of soldiers killed in Ukraine with gifts of meat grinders, an appliance widely used to describe Russia’s brutal tactics on the front line. The United Russia party in the northern Murmansk region posted photographs on social media showing officials smiling as they visited bereaved mothers with gifts of flowers and boxed meat grinders for International Women’s Day on Saturday, which is widely celebrated in Russia. The post included a message thanking the “dear moms” for their “strength of spirit and the love you put into bringing up your sons.” It
RSS