Uighurs

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 court-watchers were predicting that the Supreme Court would decide yesterday whether to hear the appeal from a group of Chinese Muslim detainees at Guantanamo Bay claiming the right to be released into the United States, the high court apparently decided not to decide, at least for now. Lyle Denniston at SCOTUSblog writes that the [...]

The Obama administration has cleared 75 of the remaining 223 Guantanamo prisoners for release as it attempts to move toward closing the detention camp by January, Reuters reports.
A task force set up when Obama took office is reviewing each case, and the administration has started posting the names of those cleared for release at the [...]

Among the cases the Supreme Court will consider reviewing in its private meeting tomorrow are two controversial cases arising out of the war on terror. Both question whether the president’s authority over detainees and information about their treatment is absolute, or reviewable by the federal courts.
The first and better-known case involves whether the executive branch [...]

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 [...]

In yet another case that questions the power of federal courts to rein in the government’s executive branch, the U.S. Circuit Court in Washington, D.C., on Tuesday issued a mandate that allows the government to send up to 150 Guantanamo detainees to other countries over the prisoners’ objections, Lyle Denniston at SCOTUSblog reports. The ruling [...]

On Monday a federal court judge ordered the Department of Defense to release a 47-year-old father of two with a heart condition who it has imprisoned at Guantanamo Bay for the past seven years without justification.