Fearing militants or even their own governments, some prisoners at Guantanamo Bay from China, Saudi Arabia and other nations do not want to go home, according to transcripts of hearings at the U.S. prison in Cuba.
Uzbekistan, Yemen, Algeria and Syria are also among the countries to which detainees do not want to return. The inmates have told military tribunals that they or their families could be tortured or killed if they are sent back.
President Bush has said the United States transfers detainees to other countries only when it receives assurances that they will not be tortured. Critics say such assurances are useless. The U.S. has released or transferred 267 prisoners and has announced plans to do the same with at least 123 more in the future.
Inmates have told military tribunals they worry about reprisals from militants who will suspect them of cooperating with U.S. authorities in its war on terror. Others say their own governments may target them for reasons that have nothing to do with why they were taken to Guantanamo Bay in the first place.
A man from Syria who was detained along with his father pleaded with the tribunal for help getting them political asylum _ in any country that will take them.
"You've been saying 'terrorists, terrorists.' If we return, whether we did something or not, there's no such things as human rights. We will be killed immediately," he said. "You know this very well."
It is impossible to know how many of the detainees, most held for years now without being charged, fear going home. The U.S. military does not comment on individual cases, and the detainees generally are not in a position to offer any evidence of persecution as they plead their cases before the tribunals.
A Saudi identified only as Yasim, who said he attended an al-Qaida training camp in Afghanistan and was jailed in his country for selling drugs, told the tribunal that after being repeatedly interrogated at Guantanamo, he fears his fellow prisoners as well as others back in Saudi Arabia.
"I can't go back to my country. I have been threatened to be killed by many people," he said, according to the transcripts, which the Pentagon released Friday in response to a Freedom of Information Act Lawsuit filed by The Associated Press.
A detainee from Uzbekistan told the tribunals in December 2004 that his father and uncles were jailed for their Muslim faith in his native country and said he fears the rest of his family would be tortured if he returned.
The prisoner shrugged off the threat to his own safety in Uzbekistan, where the government has clamped down on Islamic groups which are not sanctioned by the state.
"I'm not afraid to die. We all belong to Allah and we shall return to him," he said.
This Uzbek's fate is unknown, as is that of almost every other detainee whose names are no longer blacked out when they appear in the hearing transcripts. The Bush administration has not said who has been held in the prison it opened in January 2002, and does not announce when or where individual detainees are released.
What the Pentagon has said is that 187 prisoners have been released, and 80 others have been transferred to prisons in more than a dozen countries, including Saudi Arabia, Morocco, Russia, Bahrain and Pakistan. An unknown number of these prisoners were later released, but many languish in other jails, again without charges, let alone trials.
"We have no authority to tell another government what they are going to do with a detainee," Pentagon spokesman Lt. Cmdr. Flex Plexico told the AP a year ago when asked about dozens of Pakistani prisoners transferred home for continued detention.
The personal threats that detainees may face after leaving Guantanamo Bay pose a human rights challenge to the United States, which has stopped bringing new prisoners to the camp and is under international pressure to close it altogether.
"This policy of handing over prisoners to countries that the U.S. challenges on their human rights abuses is a sham and it opens the United States to charges of hypocrisy around the world," said Rep. Edward Markey, a Massachusetts Democrat who has sought passage of a bill that would ban the U.S. from sending prisoners to other countries to face torture.
In the case of one group of prisoners, Muslims from western China known as Uighurs, the U.S. has struggled to find a solution.
A military tribunal has determined that five are "no longer enemy combatants" and can be released from Guantanamo Bay. The U.S. agrees they could face persecution back in China but so far has not found a third country to take them.
For now, the Uighurs are being kept at Camp Iguana, a privileged section of the prison with televisions, stereos and a view of the Caribbean.
A Uighur told a military tribunal that he feared going back to China so much, he considered trying to convince the panel that he was guilty, according to a hearing transcript.
"If I am sent back to China, they will torture me really bad," said the man, whose name did not appear in the transcript. "They will use dogs. They will pull out my nails."
Two of the Uighurs are appealing a federal judge's rejection of their request to be released in the United States, where a family in the Washington suburbs has offered to take them in.
"Home is China, and in China you disappear into a dungeon and no one ever hears from you again," said their lawyer, Sabin Willett. "These guys are not a risk to anyone. They should be released here."
http://www.breitbart.com/news/2006/03/06/D8G6CJV03.html
Uzbekistan, Yemen, Algeria and Syria are also among the countries to which detainees do not want to return. The inmates have told military tribunals that they or their families could be tortured or killed if they are sent back.
President Bush has said the United States transfers detainees to other countries only when it receives assurances that they will not be tortured. Critics say such assurances are useless. The U.S. has released or transferred 267 prisoners and has announced plans to do the same with at least 123 more in the future.
Inmates have told military tribunals they worry about reprisals from militants who will suspect them of cooperating with U.S. authorities in its war on terror. Others say their own governments may target them for reasons that have nothing to do with why they were taken to Guantanamo Bay in the first place.
A man from Syria who was detained along with his father pleaded with the tribunal for help getting them political asylum _ in any country that will take them.
"You've been saying 'terrorists, terrorists.' If we return, whether we did something or not, there's no such things as human rights. We will be killed immediately," he said. "You know this very well."
It is impossible to know how many of the detainees, most held for years now without being charged, fear going home. The U.S. military does not comment on individual cases, and the detainees generally are not in a position to offer any evidence of persecution as they plead their cases before the tribunals.
A Saudi identified only as Yasim, who said he attended an al-Qaida training camp in Afghanistan and was jailed in his country for selling drugs, told the tribunal that after being repeatedly interrogated at Guantanamo, he fears his fellow prisoners as well as others back in Saudi Arabia.
"I can't go back to my country. I have been threatened to be killed by many people," he said, according to the transcripts, which the Pentagon released Friday in response to a Freedom of Information Act Lawsuit filed by The Associated Press.
A detainee from Uzbekistan told the tribunals in December 2004 that his father and uncles were jailed for their Muslim faith in his native country and said he fears the rest of his family would be tortured if he returned.
The prisoner shrugged off the threat to his own safety in Uzbekistan, where the government has clamped down on Islamic groups which are not sanctioned by the state.
"I'm not afraid to die. We all belong to Allah and we shall return to him," he said.
This Uzbek's fate is unknown, as is that of almost every other detainee whose names are no longer blacked out when they appear in the hearing transcripts. The Bush administration has not said who has been held in the prison it opened in January 2002, and does not announce when or where individual detainees are released.
What the Pentagon has said is that 187 prisoners have been released, and 80 others have been transferred to prisons in more than a dozen countries, including Saudi Arabia, Morocco, Russia, Bahrain and Pakistan. An unknown number of these prisoners were later released, but many languish in other jails, again without charges, let alone trials.
"We have no authority to tell another government what they are going to do with a detainee," Pentagon spokesman Lt. Cmdr. Flex Plexico told the AP a year ago when asked about dozens of Pakistani prisoners transferred home for continued detention.
The personal threats that detainees may face after leaving Guantanamo Bay pose a human rights challenge to the United States, which has stopped bringing new prisoners to the camp and is under international pressure to close it altogether.
"This policy of handing over prisoners to countries that the U.S. challenges on their human rights abuses is a sham and it opens the United States to charges of hypocrisy around the world," said Rep. Edward Markey, a Massachusetts Democrat who has sought passage of a bill that would ban the U.S. from sending prisoners to other countries to face torture.
In the case of one group of prisoners, Muslims from western China known as Uighurs, the U.S. has struggled to find a solution.
A military tribunal has determined that five are "no longer enemy combatants" and can be released from Guantanamo Bay. The U.S. agrees they could face persecution back in China but so far has not found a third country to take them.
For now, the Uighurs are being kept at Camp Iguana, a privileged section of the prison with televisions, stereos and a view of the Caribbean.
A Uighur told a military tribunal that he feared going back to China so much, he considered trying to convince the panel that he was guilty, according to a hearing transcript.
"If I am sent back to China, they will torture me really bad," said the man, whose name did not appear in the transcript. "They will use dogs. They will pull out my nails."
Two of the Uighurs are appealing a federal judge's rejection of their request to be released in the United States, where a family in the Washington suburbs has offered to take them in.
"Home is China, and in China you disappear into a dungeon and no one ever hears from you again," said their lawyer, Sabin Willett. "These guys are not a risk to anyone. They should be released here."
http://www.breitbart.com/news/2006/03/06/D8G6CJV03.html
