Chinese Muslims

Lyle Denniston at SCOTUSblog points out that the Supreme Court’s decision to hear the case of 17 Chinese Muslim Uighur detainees who a judge ordered released into the United States will likely also force the Justices to consider the constitutionality of two bills President Obama signed yesterday.
The issue in Kiyemba v. Obama is whether the [...]

The Supreme Court just announced that it will hear the case of the Chinese Muslim Uighurs — detainees at Guantanamo Bay cleared for release but still in prison there — to decide whether a court can order the government to release detainees into the United States.

Human rights experts say there is a serious risk that some of the Guantanamo detainees cleared for release could face persecution or torture.

Although Guantanamo Bay detainee Bahtiyar Mahnut has been invited, along with 11 more of his fellow Chinese Uighurs, to settle in the island nation of Palau, it seems he’s decided not to go because Palau has not invited his 45-year-old older brother, Arkin Mahmud, to go with him. Palau has agreed to take 12 or [...]

Switzerland sent officials last month to visit the U.S. prison at Guantanamo Bay to collect information about four detainees it’s considering accepting for resettlement, The Associated Press reports.
The men being considered are reportedly two Chinese Muslim Uighurs, an Uzbek and a Palestinian. The men the United States has been trying to relocate have all been [...]

CQ Politics notes that a fight is brewing in Congress (finally) over the charge that the Defense Department allowed Chinese government agents to abusively interrogate the Uighur detainees at Guantanamo Bay.
Reports CQ:
Jay Alan Liotta, principal director of the Defense Department office responsible for detainee policy, told a House subcommittee on Thursday that he would [...]

So I guess the island of Palau isn’t taking all 17 Uighurs after all.  The Justice Department today announced that four of them were actually sent to Bermuda instead.
Less than a month ago these Chinese Muslim prisoners were the subject of intense debate in Congress and had no place to go, as Republicans vehemently opposed [...]

While the Republicans in Congress are up in arms about the possibility that a handful of Uighurs will be released into the United States, it’s worth noting that these Chinese Muslims could have some disturbing stories to tell about their treatment at Guantanamo Bay.
Buried in a 2008 Justice Department inspector general report is the strange [...]

The Obama administration is reportedly preparing to allow up to seven Chinese Muslims imprisoned at Guantanamo Bay to settle in the United States, according to The Los Angeles Times. The plan is not final, however; it could face opposition both from China and within the United States, where many communities and local politicians have resisted [...]

Yesterday, I wrote about the 17 Chinese Uighurs’ petition to the Supreme Court challenging the decision of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit ruling that the federal courts have no authority to release the prisoners, even if they’ve been wrongfully imprisoned for years.
Well, yesterday the same D.C. Circuit Court issued another decision [...]