Uighurs’ Guantanamo release blocked
9/10/08
A US judge’s order for the release of 17 Chinese Muslim detainees at the US detention facility in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, has been blocked by the Bush administration. An emergency stay of the order was issued by the US Court of Appeals following an emergency request by aides to George Bush, the US president, on Wednesday. The move came a day after US district judge Ricardo Urbina said there was no evidence that the men, Uighurs from the Xinjiang province in western China who have been held for seven years, were a security risk and that the US constitution prohibits indefinite detention without cause. He had ordered that the prisoners be brought to his courtroom for a hearing on Friday morning, when they were to be freed and allowed to live with Uighur families in the US. But the three-judge panel in Washington said it granted the temporary stay on the order to give the appeals court more time to consider the dispute.
See: http://english.aljazeera.net/news/americas/2008/10/ 200810914950503317.html