Government Wrong About Uighurs

Once again, the Bush administration is flaunting the rule of law and trying to keep a group of innocent men incarcerated. The ethnic muslim Uighurs are from the western part of China. Seventeen of these men left China to avoid Chinese repression. They wound up in Afghanistan, and were there when the United States attacked in 2001.

When the U.S. offered cash rewards for Afghanis to turn in muslim fighters, some Afghanis saw the opportunity to make some money off the "foreigners" and turned them in to United States troops. They were sent to Guantanamo Bay, where they were kept as prisoners for years.

In 2004, the United States military decided the seventeen men were NOT enemy combatants. But they continued to hold them in prison. They claimed they had trained at a camp in Afghanistan, and therefore could not enter the United States. But they also could not find any other country that would take them. So for the last four years, the Bush administration has imprisoned men they know are innocent.

It looked like the problem might finally be solved earlier this week. A District Court Judge had ruled the prisoners were to be brought to his court this Friday, where it would be determined where they would be released. But the Bush administration appealed, and the appeals court has now issued a temporary stay until they can hear the government's argument.

The Bush administration is claiming only the executive branch of the government can admit foreigners into the United States, not a court. They are using this technical argument to keep innocent men in prison. This is just wrong. This is a matter of injustice -- not immigration.

It is the fault of the United States government that these men are now on U.S. soil (and Guantanamo is currently U.S. soil as long as the U.S. government is the sole authority there). We cannot use an immigration technicality to keep men in prison after they have been declared to be innocent -- especially when they are on U.S. soil solely because of U.S. policy and not through their own actions.

It is time to release these men. If no other country will take them, then they must be allowed to stay in the United States. Anything short of giving them their freedom is both immoral and illegal. The Bush administration must be forced to respect and follow the rule of law.