The three men were sitting in a car near Tiananmen Square when police approached them. At that point the car burst into flames (the same sources claim that the car had a registration number assigned to Xinjiang). The Chinese authorities, not surprisingly, are downplaying the whole event. They have not commented on the men's ethnicity, only to say the car had a “non-Beijing” registration ID number, and that the men were apparently engaged in some type of “personal protest.” The condition of the men was also not released, though they apparently all survived the burning.
Speaking of the Uighurs, the 17 still detained at Guantanamo Bay won't be getting out anytime soon. A federal appeals court reversed a circuit court judge Ricardo Urbina’s decision demanding their immediate release. Even though with its last breath the Bush Administration tried to promote the claim that Guantanamo only contains the “worst of the worst” terrorists, the US government long ago admitted that these 17 men committed no hostile acts against the US and stopped trying to prove they ever had any intention to several years back. The US is keeping them at Gitmo since releasing them to China would likely mean prison, if not death, for them.
The appeals court ruled that the Judge Urbina overstepped his authority in ordering their release, so for now they continue to be prisoners we know are innocent of the charges against them.
One other bit of Uighur news, one of their six compatriots released in 2006 when Albania (of all places) agreed to take them in has a new home, he was granted asylum in Sweden to live with a sister who emigrated there.
No comments:
Post a Comment