Switzerland’s decision to take two Chinese Uighur inmates from Guantanamo Bay opens the way for the US to close the case on the men whose long legal limbo has confounded two administrations.
US President Barack Obama’s administration is seen as racing to find homes for the five remaining men in Guantanamo Bay by March 23, when the Supreme Court will hear their case and could potentially order them freed on US soil.
Switzerland said on Wednesday it would grant asylum to two Uighurs from the controversial prison camp in Cuba, becoming the first Western nation to do so and risking reprisals from China.
“The government and people of Switzerland have made an extraordinary humanitarian gesture, which is even more remarkable in the face of unrelenting pressure from China,” said Rebiya Kadeer, the leader of Uighurs in exile.
Twenty-two Uighurs, member of a mostly Muslim minority in northwestern China, had set up a camp in Afghanistan and were shipped to Guantanamo Bay after US-led forces overthrew the Taliban regime in 2001.
US authorities cleared them of wrongdoing as early as 2004, coming to believe they were turned in by villagers seeking bounty money.
The administration of former US president George W. Bush refused China’s requests for them, fearing they would be tortured. It has kept them on Guantanamo Bay but with greater freedom than other prisoners, including a recreational space and library.
Obama, who took office pledging to close down the camp, thought the Uighurs would be the easiest cases. But US lawmakers prevented efforts to free them in the US and China has pressured other nations not to accept them.
Uighur inmates earlier found homes in Albania, Bermuda and Palau.
Palau, an archipelago in the Pacific, has accepted six of the inmates and offered to accept all who remain. But the prisoners have hesitated, preferring a location with a Uighur community.
Nury Turkel, a Uighur-American lawyer and activist based in Washington, expected the Obama administration to try to free the remaining Uighurs before their case goes to the Supreme Court on March 23.
“It is a long overdue step. This should have been done long ago,” he said of their release.
“I salute Switzerland for standing up and protecting the humanitarian principles that their country and culture cherish,” he said.
A judge earlier ordered that the men be freed in the US, but a higher court overturned the ruling, setting the stage for the upcoming Supreme Court case.
The nine-judge highest court has the power to throw Obama’s slow-moving Guantanamo closure plans into chaos.
“This case is about judicial power in an area that the president and Congress regard as their domain, so the stakes are very high,” said Matthew Waxman, an associate professor at Columbia Law School.
“I think all three branches of government — the executive, the Congress and the courts — hope a solution is found to resettle the Uighurs and avoid a constitutional showdown in this case,” he said.
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