[Rhodes22-list] politics - GITMO baby

[Brad Haslett]

Don't ask me how I know this or I'll have to kill you.

Here's one well fed GITMO baby who wouldn't mind staying on the beech
forever versus what he's facing at home.  It's all relative!

Brad

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Court ruling on detainee another setback for gov't

By PETE YOST, Associated Press Writer*2 hours, 4 minutes ago*

A Chinese Muslim at Guantanamo Bay got a small measure of vindication Monday
when a federal appeals court announced it had thrown out his designation as
an enemy combatant, marking a setback for the Bush administration.

The ruling in favor of Huzaifa Parhat comes in the first of what eventually
could be 160 or so such court reviews filed by Guantanamo Bay detainees in
the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit.

To be sure, the cases of Parhat and a small number of other Chinese Muslim
detainees — known as Uighurs — are a unique sub-category of the cases
involving roughly 270 detainee at Guantanamo Bay.

The Justice Department concedes that Parhat never fought against the U.S.
and says it has no evidence he was planning to do so.

The case hinges on Parhat's connection to the East Turkestan Islamic
Movement, a militant group that demands separation from China and that the
military says has some ties to the al-Qaida terrorist network.

The United States named the East Turkestan Islamic Movement a terrorist
group in 2002, a move that some international affairs analysts say was made
to appease China and ensure it would not oppose the invasion of Iraq.

The appeals court directed the U.S. military to release Parhat, to transfer
him or to hold a new proceeding promptly. The court also specified that
Parhat could petition a federal judge seeking his immediate release in light
of the Supreme Court's June 12 decision giving that right to all the
detainees held at Guantanamo Bay.

The Bush administration wants to delay the type of appeals court proceeding
that went in Parhat's favor. The administration is taking the position that
in view of the Supreme Court's June 12 ruling, the court system should first
deal with the detainees' petitions in the lower federal courts challenging
their indefinite detention, a process that promises to be complicated and
time-consuming.

In a June 19 letter to Defense Secretary Robert Gates that was released
Monday, Reps. Bill Delahunt, D-Mass., and Dana Rohrabacher, R-Calif., called
the Uighurs friends of the United States and asked Gates to parole them into
the United States. In the meantime, they should be transferred to
less-restrictive quarters at Guantanamo Bay, urged Delahunt and Rohrabacher.

Delahunt chairs a House subcommittee on human rights and Rohrabacher is the
panel's ranking Republican.

The U.S. has tried to find a country willing to accept the Uighurs even as
it defends its decision to hold them as enemy combatants.

The military says Parhat trained in an ETIM camp to prepare to fight against
China. The Chinese government blames the separatist group for hundreds of
attacks, while human rights groups say Beijing represses religious freedom
and uses anti-terrorism laws to crack down on legitimate protests.

The three-member appeals court panel that issued the ruling consisted of
Chief Judge David Sentelle and judges Merrick Garland and Thomas Griffith.

Sentelle is an appointee of President Reagan, Garland was appointed by
President Clinton and Griffith was appointed by President George W. Bush.

Earlier this month, Delahunt and Rohrabacher chastised the Bush
administration for allowing the Chinese government to interrogate Chinese
Muslim detainees who remain at Guantanamo Bay.

The Bush administration previously arranged for five Uighurs to be sent to
Albania. Last week, Sweden denied asylum to one of the Chinese Muslims who
wants to leave Albania.

A lawyer for the Muslim, Adel Abdu Al-Hakim, says Albania will not allow the
man's wife and children, who are still in China, to join him. Al-Hakim
applied for asylum in Sweden in November, when he visited to attend a human
rights conference in Stockholm.