17 Uighur Chinese citizens remain imprisoned in Guantanamo Bay due to a lack of nations willing to offer amnesty, U.S. unwillingness to repatriate them to China, and the recent reversal of a court order that the prisoners be released in the United States. Sabin Willet, the chief lawyer representing the Uighur detainees, has expressed willingness to take the fight for his clients’ release to the Supreme Court. From Radio Free Asia:
The lead lawyer for 17 ethnic Uyghurs held for years at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba is vowing to fight a new legal order keeping the men in U.S. military custody and is calling on U.S. President Barack Obama to free them quickly.
“We are bloodied but unbowed. We will fight this,” Sabin Willet, who represents the 17 Uyghurs—Muslims from China’s northwestern Xinjiang region—said in a telephone interview on his way back from visiting the men at Guantanamo Bay.
[…]“There is a mechanism for seeking further review in the Court of Appeals, and the Supreme Court is a second option.”
On Wednesday, a three-judge panel from the U.S. Court of Appeals reversed an earlier ruling that the Uyghurs—who have been cleared of the terrorism charges on which they were initially detained—must be released in the United States.
