Uighurs urge Supreme Court to order release from Guantanamo

Uighurs urge court to order release

WASHINGTON — Lawyers for Guantanamo detainees who continue to be held, though they have been cleared for release, urged the Supreme Court on Friday to put teeth into a year-old ruling that allowed the prisoners to challenge their confinement.

Lawyers representing a group of Chinese Muslims said federal judges and the Obama administration have rendered the high court’s decision worthless, by insisting that judges lack the power to order release of detainees into the United States if no other country will take them.

The high court could decide later this month whether to take up the case.

In his majority opinion last year, Justice Anthony Kennedy made clear that federal judges could ultimately order some detainees to be released. But he also said such orders would depend on security concerns and other circumstances.

The Chinese Muslims, or Uighurs (pronounced WEE’-gurz), remain confined even after the Pentagon determined they are not enemy combatants and U.S. District Judge Ricardo Urbina ordered that they be freed in the United States.

A federal appeals court overturned Urbina’s ruling and the administration last week told the court that it agreed with the appeals court.

The administration insisted in its filing that it is trying to find a home for the Uighurs, who could face prosecution or worse if returned to China.

The filing on behalf of the Uighurs says the Bush administration “said the same thing five years ago.”

The administration’s “assurances that diplomatic efforts continue are like assurances that efforts to cure the common cold continue,” the lawyers say. “No one doubts them. But the imprisonment continues too, and that is what matters.”

Uighurs are from Xinjiang, an isolated region that borders Afghanistan, Pakistan and six Central Asian nations. 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.

The case is Kiyemba v. Obama, 08-1234.