On The Front Lines
At Urging of The Rutherford Institute & Others, U.S. Supreme Court Agrees to Hear Case Challenging Unlawful Detention of Uighurs at Guantanamo
WASHINGTON, DC -- The United States Supreme Court decided today that it will hear the case involving the Chinese Muslims, known as Uighurs (pronounced WEE-GERS), being unlawfully detained at Guantanamo Bay. The U.S. military and the courts have long recognized that the Uighur detainees do not pose a threat to the United States, therefore leaving no legal basis for their continued detention. Federal District Court Judge Urbina ordered they be released into the United States last October, but the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit reversed, deciding that courts lacked the authority to order such a release. The Uighurs then sought review of their case, Kiyemba v. Obama, by the Supreme Court, which will now decide the case.
Click here to view the brief.
"The American government lacks a legal basis to detain the Uighurs. Since there is no evidence that they pose a threat to the United States, these people should be released," stated John W. Whitehead, president of The Rutherford Institute. "It is our hope the U.S. Supreme Court will act justly in this matter. However, the Obama administration does not have to wait for the Court to resolve this matter. The president should act promptly to find another home for the Uighurs and end their unlawful detention without further delay."
The thirteen Uighurs still held at Guantanamo have been detained there for over seven years now. Both the Bush and Obama administrations have recognized that they are not "enemy combatants" and have tried to find countries willing to accept them for resettlement. Since the D.C. Circuit's decision, four of the seventeen Uighurs were removed from detention and resettled in the nation of Bermuda; another six have accepted an offer to resettle in Palau. After that resettlement occurs, seven Uighurs will still remain imprisoned at Guantanamo.
The Rutherford Institute, along with the Constitution Project, the Brennan Center for Justice, the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers, and the City of New York Bar Association, filed a friend of the court brief in the Supreme Court on May 7, urging the Court to accept review of the Uighurs' case seeking release from Guantanamo now that they have been recognized not to be enemy combatants.
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