A US court on Wednesday refused to release 17 Chinese Uighurs detained at Guantanamo Bay into the US, spelling more legal limbo for the men cleared by Washington of “war on terror” allegations.
The Uighurs — members of a Muslim, Turkic-speaking minority — were arrested in Afghanistan and fear torture if they return home. Beijing regards the men as “Chinese terrorists.”
By a two-to-one vote, a three-judge panel of a US appeals court ruled that a federal judge does not have the authority to decide who can legally enter the US, a power they said resides only with the president or Congress.
The court struck down an Oct. 8 ruling by US District Judge Ricardo Urbina, who ordered the federal government to free the 17 men in the Washington area where there is a large Uighur community.
“We are certain that no habeas corpus court since the time of Edward I ever ordered such an extraordinary remedy,” senior Circuit Court Judge Raymond Randolph wrote.
The Uighurs have been imprisoned at the US detention center at Guantanamo for six years, even though they were cleared two years ago of being “enemy combatants.”
US President Barack Obama plans to shut down by early next year the detention camp in Cuba, which became a symbol of perceived excess in the “war on terror” under his predecessor.
Leading Uighur activist Rebiya Kadeer, who lives in exile in Washington, said she was “disappointed” by the court decision.
“But I hope that the Obama administration still consider releasing and resettling the Uighur detainees at Guantanamo in the US,” she said.
Jameel Jaffer, director of the American Civil Liberties Union's National Security Project, denounced the court move as a throwback to the Bush era.
“This decision only underscores how important it is that the Obama administration act quickly to dismantle the Bush administration's misguided national security policies and to close Guantanamo altogether,” he said.
The Obama administration said last month it “cannot imagine” sending the inmates to China, saying they could be mistreated.
In response, the Uighurs' lawyers urged their release into the Washington area, saying the US was the only nation where they could go and that the decision would encourage other countries to accept inmates.
But the Washington federal appeals court rejected the argument that the Uighurs deserve to be released into the US “after all they have endured at the hands of the US.”
“Such sentiments, however highminded, do not represent a legal basis for upsetting settled law and overriding the prerogatives of political branches,” Randolph wrote.
Randolph argued that the court “has, without exception, sustained the exclusive power of the political branches to decide which aliens may, and which aliens may not, enter the United States, and on what terms.”
He said the court did not know “whether all petitioners or any of them would qualify for entry or admission under the immigration laws.”
Nvidia Corp yesterday unveiled its new high-speed interconnect technology, NVLink Fusion, with Taiwanese application-specific IC (ASIC) designers Alchip Technologies Ltd (世芯) and MediaTek Inc (聯發科) among the first to adopt the technology to help build semi-custom artificial intelligence (AI) infrastructure for hyperscalers. Nvidia has opened its technology to outside users, as hyperscalers and cloud service providers are building their own cost-effective AI chips, or accelerators, used in AI servers by leveraging ASIC firms’ designing capabilities to reduce their dependence on Nvidia. Previously, NVLink technology was only available for Nvidia’s own AI platform. “NVLink Fusion opens Nvidia’s AI platform and rich ecosystem for
WARNING: From Jan. 1 last year to the end of last month, 89 Taiwanese have gone missing or been detained in China, the MAC said, urging people to carefully consider travel to China Lax enforcement had made virtually moot regulations banning civil servants from making unauthorized visits to China, the Control Yuan said yesterday. Several agencies allowed personnel to travel to China after they submitted explanations for the trip written using artificial intelligence or provided no reason at all, the Control Yuan said in a statement, following an investigation headed by Control Yuan member Lin Wen-cheng (林文程). The probe identified 318 civil servants who traveled to China without permission in the past 10 years, but the true number could be close to 1,000, the Control Yuan said. The public employees investigated were not engaged in national
ALL TOGETHER: Only by including Taiwan can the WHA fully exemplify its commitment to ‘One World for Health,’ the representative offices of eight nations in Taiwan said The representative offices in Taiwan of eight nations yesterday issued a joint statement reiterating their support for Taiwan’s meaningful engagement with the WHO and for Taipei’s participation as an observer at the World Health Assembly (WHA). The joint statement came as Taiwan has not received an invitation to this year’s WHA, which started yesterday and runs until Tuesday next week. This year’s meeting of the decisionmaking body of the WHO in Geneva, Switzerland, would be the ninth consecutive year Taiwan has been excluded. The eight offices, which reaffirmed their support for Taiwan, are the British Office Taipei, the Australian Office Taipei, the
DANGEROUS DRIVERS: The proposal follows a fatal incident on Monday involving a 78-year-old driver, which killed three people and injured 12 The Ministry of Transportation and Communications yesterday said it would lower the age for elderly drivers to renew their license from 75 to 70 as part of efforts to address safety issues caused by senior motorists. The new policy was proposed in light of a deadly incident on Monday in New Taipei City’s Sansia District (三峽), in which a 78-year-old motorist surnamed Yu (余) sped through a school zone, killing three people and injuring 12. Last night, another driver sped down a street in Tainan’s Yuching District (玉井), killing one pedestrian and injuring two. The incidents have sparked public discussion over whether seniors
RSS