Team Infidel
Forum Spin Doctor
New York Times
October 12, 2008
Pg. WK9
A federal judge in Washington has struck an important blow for the rule of law by ordering that 17 detainees be freed from Guantánamo Bay. But the Bush administration is fighting the ruling to avoid having the case become an open window into the outlaw world of President Bush’s detention camps.
The detainees are members of the Uighur Muslim minority of China, which is violently oppressed by the Beijing government. They were swept up in Pakistan after the American invasion of Afghanistan and thrown into indefinite detention as “illegal enemy combatants.”
They are not enemy combatants, legal or illegal, nor are they terrorists. Their detention — along with the detention of others held at Guantánamo without charges or real hearings — has gravely injured the nation’s tradition of due process and its international standing.
The Bush administration admitted long ago that the 17 Uighur detainees were not a threat to this country, but it would not allow them into the United States. Instead, Washington began asking other countries, mostly in Europe, to give the detainees asylum from China, which was demanding their return.
Those nations refused, partly out of fear of China’s reaction. The State Department argued that allowing some of the Uighurs into the United States would encourage other nations, but the White House refused.
Then, in June, the Supreme Court ruled that Guantánamo detainees had a right under the principle of habeas corpus to challenge their confinement. The court rejected the administration’s claim that the detainees were outside the reach of the courts.
The Uighurs filed habeas corpus petitions, and Judge Ricardo Urbina of Federal District Court in Washington ordered them released. Judge Urbina said it was time to “shine the light of constitutionality” on the Bush administration’s detention camps.
They need the light. The Bush administration told the countries it was trying to persuade to take the detainees that they posed no threat. It has stipulated in court documents that they are not a threat. But after Judge Urbina’s ruling, the government suddenly claimed the 17 men were a threat, and managed to obtain a stay of the judge’s order from the federal appeals court in Washington.
Meanwhile, Washington is still trying to find a country to take the Uighurs — assuring those nations, no doubt, that they are no threat. The search is reportedly focused on countries that recognize Taiwan and thus are less worried about offending China — a list that includes Burkina Faso, Belize, Nauru, Palau, Tuvalu and the Marshall Islands. Some human rights advocates suspect the administration sought the injunction to buy time to quietly ship the Uighurs to one of these remote countries.
The administration must not be allowed to do that. The appellate court should affirm Judge Urbina’s ruling and allow the detainees into the United States. The government’s counterproposal — if the Uighurs cannot go somewhere else, they should stay at Guantánamo — is more absurd than its other arguments.
The administration is not afraid the Uighurs will take to the streets against the United States government. It is afraid they will take to the microphones.
October 12, 2008
Pg. WK9
A federal judge in Washington has struck an important blow for the rule of law by ordering that 17 detainees be freed from Guantánamo Bay. But the Bush administration is fighting the ruling to avoid having the case become an open window into the outlaw world of President Bush’s detention camps.
The detainees are members of the Uighur Muslim minority of China, which is violently oppressed by the Beijing government. They were swept up in Pakistan after the American invasion of Afghanistan and thrown into indefinite detention as “illegal enemy combatants.”
They are not enemy combatants, legal or illegal, nor are they terrorists. Their detention — along with the detention of others held at Guantánamo without charges or real hearings — has gravely injured the nation’s tradition of due process and its international standing.
The Bush administration admitted long ago that the 17 Uighur detainees were not a threat to this country, but it would not allow them into the United States. Instead, Washington began asking other countries, mostly in Europe, to give the detainees asylum from China, which was demanding their return.
Those nations refused, partly out of fear of China’s reaction. The State Department argued that allowing some of the Uighurs into the United States would encourage other nations, but the White House refused.
Then, in June, the Supreme Court ruled that Guantánamo detainees had a right under the principle of habeas corpus to challenge their confinement. The court rejected the administration’s claim that the detainees were outside the reach of the courts.
The Uighurs filed habeas corpus petitions, and Judge Ricardo Urbina of Federal District Court in Washington ordered them released. Judge Urbina said it was time to “shine the light of constitutionality” on the Bush administration’s detention camps.
They need the light. The Bush administration told the countries it was trying to persuade to take the detainees that they posed no threat. It has stipulated in court documents that they are not a threat. But after Judge Urbina’s ruling, the government suddenly claimed the 17 men were a threat, and managed to obtain a stay of the judge’s order from the federal appeals court in Washington.
Meanwhile, Washington is still trying to find a country to take the Uighurs — assuring those nations, no doubt, that they are no threat. The search is reportedly focused on countries that recognize Taiwan and thus are less worried about offending China — a list that includes Burkina Faso, Belize, Nauru, Palau, Tuvalu and the Marshall Islands. Some human rights advocates suspect the administration sought the injunction to buy time to quietly ship the Uighurs to one of these remote countries.
The administration must not be allowed to do that. The appellate court should affirm Judge Urbina’s ruling and allow the detainees into the United States. The government’s counterproposal — if the Uighurs cannot go somewhere else, they should stay at Guantánamo — is more absurd than its other arguments.
The administration is not afraid the Uighurs will take to the streets against the United States government. It is afraid they will take to the microphones.