Have you heard of the plight of Chinese Muslims, deemed innocent, but still held at Guantanamo? This site’s good friend Other Lisa is guest-blogging at Peking Duck, and wrote today about the “Uighurs At Gitmo,” quoting from the WaPo:
In late 2003, the Pentagon quietly decided that 15 Chinese Muslims detained at the military prison in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, could be released. Five were people who were in the wrong place at the wrong time, some of them picked up by Pakistani bounty hunters for U.S. payoffs. The other 10 were deemed low-risk detainees whose enemy was China’s communist government — not the United States, according to senior U.S. officials.
More than 20 months later, the 15 still languish at Guantanamo Bay, imprisoned and sometimes shackled, with most of their families unaware whether they are even alive.
They are men without a country. The Bush administration has chosen not to send them home for fear China will imprison, persecute or torture them, as the United States charges has happened to other members of China’s Muslim minority. But the State Department has also been unable to find another country to take them in, according to U.S. officials and recently filed court documents.
I’ve received press releases about the Uighur from the Center for Constitutional Rights, which is demanding their release (CCR Press Release). However, when I wrote back to CCR asking where they’d be sent, CCR wasn’t sure. So I’m of two minds about this, from the little I know: 1) They’re innocent so release them; and 2) Don’t send them to near certain imprisonment and torture in China. Frankly, they may be better off in a low-security section of Gitmo than in their own country! I don’t know for sure.
Other Lisa has found herself in the midst of a big debate at Peking Duck, and has asked for reinforcements. Can you hop on over and pitch in to aid Other Lisa?
here’s what i posted … dunno how good it is in helping Lisa…
Last night’s and tonight’s Nightline programs (ABC, U.S. television) are must-see television for all who can. A U.S. Navy veteran and U.S. citizen was detained — by the U.S. military — almost entirely in solitary confinement for 55 days in Iraq, without review of his case, access to counsel, or any opportunity to contact the U.S. embassy. If you can’t see Nightline, look up his story. His name is Cyrus Kar. BBC has an excellent story on his case.
Sadly, we have a lot of amateurs, some of them made crude and cruel by power (see Philip Zimbardo, Stanford University, prison experiment), running these prison facilities, and we have almost no control at the top of our government over how prisoners are treated or what rights they are given. That’s because there is a moral and legal vacuum at the top. The problems — including torture, false imprisonment, and murder — extend to every prison facility run by the U.S. government worldwide, from Afghanistan to Iraq to Guantanamo Bay.
THAT said, I am worried about the Uighur. Some nation should kindly reach out to them and offer them sanctuary. It seems that China is NOT the place to return them. They also must be afforded IMMEDIATE access to communications with their families.
And, wouldn’t this be a fine instance in which the Dept. of State, through Condi Rice, could step in and perform a high-minded diplomatic, and humanitarian, act in finding sanctuary for these people — either in a culturally compatible community within the U.S. or in another country — also as a way to counter the constant barrage of criticisms of detainee treatment?
And, wouldn’t this be a fine instance in which the Dept. of State, through Condi Rice, could step in and perform a high-minded diplomatic, and humanitarian, act in finding sanctuary for these people — either in a culturally compatible community within the U.S. or in another country —
That would take diplomacy… Something none of these neocons understand, nor do they care to try and understand.
This is truly a conundrum. After being terrorized in an American prison they are likely pretty hostile towards the USA now, even if most of them were not beforehand.
And no other country is really interested in helping the USA in any ways at this point, given how we have screwed anyone our present “leadership” (for lack of a better word? “Bleedership” perhaps? Given the blood on all of their hands…) has come into contact with.
Just another example of how the bush regime ignores every opportunity to do the right thing, and ends up backing themselves into a corner with no options while others suffer because of their incompetence.
Did a long piece on their plight this morning. You can hear it here.
We fucked up, but the Pentagon and Justice are afraid to do the right thing and LET THEM OUT, for fear that these guys might be fooling them.
People are released from incarceration into some controlled environment all the time. Find a Uigar community and a lawyer to take responsibility for them. Holding them in this Kafkaesque limbo, especially since they are apparently in Gitmo for no good reason, is indefensible.
We claim to be fighters for human rights, yet we shit on actual human beings all the time.
Makes me ashamed of my country.
What can we do, practically speaking, besides donate to CCR, which is arguing their case?
sadly, I think it’s in the hands of the lawyers. This administration has amply demonstrated that they are innured to demands for decency.
Well, and work to elect a new Congress and Senate that might have the balls to bring impeachment charges.
We fucked up, but the Pentagon and Justice are afraid to do the right thing and LET THEM OUT, for fear that these guys might be fooling them.
OR perhaps they don’t want them to get out and start talking about prison conditions?
Torture Inc.
Other Lisa has found herself in the midst of a big debate at Peking Duck, and has asked for reinforcements
One neocon wanker that can’t distinguish between MURDER and torture and you call that a big debate?
lol
I left a comment anyways… One of my typically meandering messages of contempt for those that don’t respect the Geneva Conventions AND/OR need to check the dictionary on the meanings of horror, torture and murder…
I hope Richard or Other Lisa doesn’t find my comment to be rude or over the line even though my comment was not directed at them? I just can’t “play nice” when it comes to the stupidity some people (rupert, to be specific) throw out there.
It was so nice of you to take the trouble to do that for Other Lisa! Thank you! She’s a very responsible person, and she was at work, feeling frustrated she couldn’t juggle that discussion with everything else … it looks like the site owner stepped in too, which is good.
When I used to be on AOL one of the things we decided to do with one of our Email groups was to develope a “Quick Response Mechanism” to help cover all of the topics on message boards that would often get over run by freepers.
Everyone here monitors different boards and blogs already, and we all know the feeling when a message board gets out of hand and we need some backup.
You need to fight fire with fire, and this is exactly how freepers operate. They try and over run boards with a showing of “overwhelming support” of their skewered point of view (pov) on any active board or on a board that opposes their point of view. Poor Rupert may have been one lonely fool, but we just out-freeped him.
We have proven that we can out think them over here on the left. The left blogosphere is the largest think tank on earth now. The numerous posts and comments need to begin to translate into actions NOW. Co-ordinated actions to be precise.
Putting up a link to a site where other like minded thinkers can take actions like this can change momentum on many issues.
Yes, it would be futile to try and over run “Red State” with our pov, but there are many public boards that are ripe for OUR INFLUENCE.
The blogs are great… BUT, and this is a HUGE BUT… The average reader of our own blogs is already partial to our pov on most subjects. “Preaching to the choir”, huh?
Actions like monitoring Yahoo! message boards, AOL message boards, or other blogs that may cover topics that are of interest to both political sides are where we can translate actions into supporters of our pov. It is the internet version of taking the message to the streets (Taking it to the streets will always be the best means of influence).
We, on the left, need to enlarge our sphere of influence” to outside of blogs, and diaries like this.
Someone puts up a link asking for help “out there somewhere”, well, if you don’t respond than you have just wasted an opportunity to get our messages out there.
TPK may be a left blog (I don’t know? I haven’t read it before last night) but this sort of action and response should be Standard Operating Procedure at any and all times for anyone that can spare a minute to the cause.
Put up a link to the “message area” and add brief background info messages on the problem so that people with the most background on any given issue will recognize an area they can help in right away. Others follow to reinforce that pov.
We can out-freep them any day. Why? Because our messages are based on facts more often than theirs are! lol
TPD is run by one guy (Richard) who is a good liberal fellow. That’s one of the reasons he asked me to administer in his absence, because he knows our politics are similar. But because it’s mainly a China blog, there’s a much broader diversity of opinion there than you will find on most issues-oriented blogs. Conrad, for example, is a regular commenter. I disagree violently with him about most things but it’s the China aspect that brings him and others there (he’s a Hong Kong resident). Unlike that guy Rupert, who I think was just a freeper who came because of an Instapundit link.
CT, your posts were great, and I’m really glad that you responded to Rupert AND to Conrad.
I’m soooo tired that I may not be getting everything you are suggesting – you’re saying put a message area on the blog itself, or…?
I sure appreciate the way you guys responded to my call. I really was too tired and frayed and busy to write any more. Except, HAH, if you want a good laugh, go down to the bottom of the post titled “What’s Going Down” and experience the brilliance of “Skippy”…
I’m soooo tired that I may not be getting everything you are suggesting – you’re saying put a message area on the blog itself, or…?
Nah… All I am saying is that when you are on ANY MESSAGE BOARD (TPD included) and you feel like you are getting over run with too many freeper types, well, you know that there are many leftys and liberals here, and other places like dKos, where you can post a message (WITH A LINK!) to get some backup.
And if Conrad says stuff like he did in those posts often…
Newsflash: He is likely a freeper. lol
The really good message board posters are so subtle in their posts with the language they use in their messages you might never have thought about whom they represent.
Clue number one: He changed the subject to a completely different subject for no real reason. (So did I, a bit… But I had a purpose of making fun of that rupert guy… lol)
Clue number 2: When called out on his bunk OR unable to prove a point effectively… The subject he changes to was attacking Clinton.
Clue number 3: Who backed up rupert, and therefore rupert’s INSANE LOGIC, when I went off subject a bit with my quote making fun of rupert and his definition of torture? (and of course making fun of bush… lol)
Freeper Conrad
I wonder if Conrad ever visits instapundit? It might explain where the link came from. Somewhere right now a bunch of freepers are, likely, discussing the link they tracked to this discussion… lol
AND… Your board is likely always being freeped. You just didn’t think about it. Can there really be that many twisted people on this earth?
Hell no!
Just a hundred thousand freepers with a million screen names between them.
Yeah…it’s the insta-puppy crowd, I’m pretty sure…
Well, I called on our little e-group, and yay, Susan, she hooked me up here. Great having you over at TPD. I really do get just fed up and exhausted making the same effin’ arguments over and over – which as you mention, they never respond to.
That Rupert was a real ass…
Did you read Skippy on the Iraqi constitution thread? His comment was so dumb it was kind of funny…
Yeah, I was at work, then I went to class, got home and didn’t get to sit down to my computer until about a half hour ago…still haven’t gone to look at TPD. I hope you guys slapped him silly. I was literally biting my tongue because I feel like I have to be somewhat measured in my comments…but that kind of bullshit makes me so angry I can’t even tell you.
But maybe I don’t have to, and that’s the beauty of a site like this.
Conn. (I can’t spell that state), if you are Stephen, I didn’t think you were rude or out of line at all, and either would Richard (the site owner).
I dunno, you think I’d be inured to this sort of thing, and it’s not the personal insults at all. It’s just…that attitude. That these guys’ lives aren’t even worth considering. That being locked up in Gitmo for three years isn’t sooo bad because, hey, at least we aren’t, I don’t know, torturing them with cattle-prods or something. It’s not being able to acknowledge that these guys’ lives are as meaningful to them as our own lives are to us.
It’s absolutely sickening.
Conn. (I can’t spell that state), if you are Stephen,
Yes, that’d be me… And I can’t spell it either. I just cut and paste it from a dictionary or use “CT” instead of writing it out…
LOL JK
MASS. <<< There is a state I avoid even saying, nevermind all of those countries that end in “stan”…
🙂
I visited Xinjiang, the Uighur homeland, last year, and learned that:
The US traditionally championed the Uighurs against Chinese persecution. That championship ended after 9/11, when we acceded to Chinese insistence that they be labelled terrorists. The religiously moderate Uighurs are feeling betrayed.
I shouldn’t try to read stuff in the early morning… I first thought this said “What Should Happen to Uglier Detainees?”. I thought that was a bit much, even for the nutters we have in office now.
It’s to be hoped that there will be someplace found for them, where they will be safe from (more) persecution. You’d think that process would be accelerated now that the word is out about their situation, but only as long as pressure is kept up.
We actually have many detainees like this, last I heard… not in Gitmo specifically, but all throughout our system. People who have been rejected asylum, or who have committed crimes and served out their time and are scheduled for deportation… but no one will take them. Some, their countries have disappeared, others have governments that refuse to accept them back, or they face persecution if they are sent back, or whatever… so, they just languish in captivity for years.
A sad situation that gets little notice, and that no one seems to have a clue how to fix.
It’s crystal clear to me that the United States should give these guys refuge, and passports, and anything else they need.
The US, after all, is the country that illegally detained them and continues to hold them.
I’m a bit mystified by several comments above suggesting that the US must find some other country to take them in.
There should be a massive letter/email campaign to Congress about this. Otherwise the poor bastards, without any power at all, will continue to rot in Gitmo.
Another stinking scandal for Bush’s legacy.