The administration of US President Barack Obama, picking up the argument of its predecessor, is opposing the release of Chinese Muslim detainees at Guantanamo Bay into the US.
In papers filed with the Supreme Court late on Friday, the administration says a group of Uighurs are being lawfully held at the US Navy base in Cuba even though they are not considered enemy combatants.
The administration said a federal appeals court ruling that blocked the Uighurs’ release in the US should be upheld.
The government is trying to find another country to take them.
Their “continued presence at Guantanamo Bay is not unlawful detention, but rather the consequence of their lawful exclusion from the United States,” Solicitor-General Elena Kagan told the court.
The men are held apart from the other detainees, in the least restrictive conditions, Kagan said.
“They are free to leave Guantanamo Bay to go to any country that is willing to accept them,” she said.
The court could decide by late next month whether to hear the Uighurs’ case.
A federal judge determined in October that the Uighurs should be freed because the Pentagon no longer considered them enemy combatants. US District Judge Ricardo Urbina said they should be allowed into this country because the administration could find no other country willing to accept them.
The administration of former president George W. Bush appealed Urbina’s decision and the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit said Urbina had gone too far in ordering the men released into the US.
The three-judge appeals panel suggested the detainees might be able to seek entry by applying to the US Department of Homeland Security, which administers US immigration laws. But the court bluntly concluded that the detainees otherwise had no constitutional right to immediate freedom after being held in custody at Guantanamo without charges for seven years.
The Uighurs argue that last year’s Supreme Court ruling that granted Guantanamo detainees the right to go to federal court to seek their freedom is meaningless if they can continue to be held.
Uighurs are from Xinjiang, an isolated region that borders Afghanistan, Pakistan and six Central Asian countries. They are Turkic-speaking Muslims who say they have long been repressed by the Chinese government. China has said that insurgents are leading an Islamic separatist movement in Xinjiang. The Uighur detainees were captured in Pakistan and Afghanistan in 2001.
Albania accepted five Uighur detainees in 2006 but since has balked at taking others, partly for fear of diplomatic repercussions from China.
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