2 MORE UIGHUR DETAINEES AT GITMO HEADING TO PALAU
KOROR, Palau – Two more Chinese Muslim detainees held at Guantanamo Bay have agreed to be relocated to the tiny Pacific nation of Palau, their lawyer said Saturday, bringing to six the total who will resettle.
Source AP
- Palau has offered 13 ethnic Uighurs held at the U.S. military prison in Cuba a chance to move there — an arrangement that would ease President Barack Obama's plans to close the contentious facility.
- The men have been held by the U.S. since their capture in Afghanistan and Pakistan in 2001. The Pentagon determined last year they were not "enemy combatants" but they have been in legal limbo ever since. China regards the Uighurs (pronounced WEE'-gurs) as terrorist suspects and wants them returned.
- But Uighur activists claim the detainees face persecution or death if they are returned there, and U.S. officials have struggled to find a country to take them in.
- "Two more of our clients have agreed to go to Palau as the U.S. continues to look for a permanent home for them," Eric Tirschwell, the U.S.-based lawyer for four of the detainees, told The Associated Press on Saturday.
- Their acceptance means six of the detained Chinese Muslims have now decided to move to the mid-Pacific state, which offered in early June to take in the Turkic Muslims from far western China.
- That same month, four Uighur detainees were resettled in Bermuda.
- Five of the detainees have declined even to meet with Palau officials.
- The relocation agreements need U.S. Congressional approval, a process that is expected to take about two weeks.
- "We are hopeful that this long overdue move to freedom will happen as quickly as possible and are doing whatever we can to make that happen," Tirschwell said in an e-mail.
- There was no immediate response to requests for comment from Palauan officials or from the U.S. State Department.
- Palau is a developing country of 20,000 that is dependent on U.S. development funds.
- No Uighurs currently live on Palau, which has a Muslim population of about 400, mostly migrant workers from Bangladesh.
- Made up of eight main islands plus more than 250 islets, Palau is best known for diving and tourism and is located some 500 miles (800 kilometers) east of the Philippines in the Pacific Ocean.
MUSLIM CITY OF URUMQI IN CHINA HIT BY VIOLENCE
The western Chinese region of Xinjiang experienced the biggest display of ethnic unrest in recent memory today as thousands of Muslim Uighurs took to the streets in protest.
Source: Zone Europe.com
- The protesters smashed up buses, threw stones through shop windows and assaulted Han Chinese passers-by, according to a witness, who said the spark was the recent killing of Uighur migrant workers in Guangdong, southern China.
- Xinhua, the state news agency, reported that vehicles were set on fire and traffic guard rails overturned. Bloodied victims were rushed to hospital in the regional capital, Urumqi, as armed riot police moved in to restore order with tear gas, armoured vehicles and road blocks, according to a foreign student in Xinjiang.
- A large section of Urumqi was shut off to vehicles tonight , with police manning roadblocks at the perimeter, and witnesses reported large numbers of armed officers inside the cordon. Mobile phone networks appeared to get cut off sporadically.
- There's a terrible situation today. There were big ethnic riots - there was a lot of fighting," said one Han resident. "It's not safe – you can't go anywhere near there.
- They've blocked it all off. You have to be careful." "It's very dangerous so you can't go into the centre at all. It's the Uighurs causing violence," complained a Han businessman, who said he was unable to get home because of the blocks.
- The protests were said to have started when several thousand people rallied in the Grand Bazaar to protest at the death of two Uighur migrants, and injuries suffered by hundreds of others, during an ethnic conflict between workers in a factory in Guangdong last month.
VISITORS GEOFLAGS SINCE AUGUST 26, 2009
