A U.S. judge yesterday ordered the United States to release immediately 17 ethnic Uyghurs from China who have been held at Guantanamo Bay for almost seven years, in a move immediately welcomed by the Uyghur exile groups.

U.S. District Judge Ricardo M. Urbina ruled that the Uyghurs, Muslims from China’s northwestern Xinjiang region, must be freed because they are no longer considered enemy combatants.

“Because the Constitution prohibits indefinite detentions without cause, the continued detention is unlawful,” Urbina said. He ordered their release by Friday 10th October in Washington, and he also set a hearing for next week to determine where they should be settled.

Whether President George W. Bush’s administration would appeal the decision wasn’t immediately known.

Rebiya Kadeer, president of the World Uyghur Congress, welcomed the judge’s order and called it a victory for millions of Uyghurs inside China, some of whom China has labeled terrorists committed to violent separatism.

“The Chinese government is trying to portray all Uyghurs as terrorists just because there are Uyghurs detained in Guantanamo. They try to classify any kind of fight by Uyghurs as terrorist activity, and they are trying to exterminate our ethnic group,” Kadeer said “But today, the western world, and especially the United States through its Constitution, has proven that they are innocent. Now they will be released from the cages of Guantanamo to freedom.”

“We can see that the Chinese government’s assertions, that somehow the Uyghurs detained in Guantanamo were somehow linked to global terror, have all been denied by the United States courts here. This is a wonderful, historic day for Uyghur people,” said Henryk Szadziewski of the Uyghur Human Rights Project “What we’re looking at here is a decision that says that Uyghur people are not interested in pursuing their cause for increased democracy and human rights through violent means.”
Link to Uyghur Human Rights Project