At least four Chinese Muslims detained at Guantanamo Bay will be transferred to the Pacific island nation of Palau, Palau President Johnson Toribiong said.
“We have received word Friday from the United States government confirming their position” of temporarily resettling the Uighurs in Palau, Toribiong said.
“Four Uighurs are confirmed to temporarily settle in Palau,” he said.
Toribiong did not give any other details of the move, including the likely timing of the Uighurs’ shift from the controversial detention camp in Cuba.
He had earlier said the transfer was expected to occur before January.
The lawyer for some of the 13 Chinese Muslims held at Guantanamo said on Friday that two of them expected to be transferred next month.
“Two of my clients have accepted offers” to relocate to Palau, lawyer George Clarke said, adding that they could leave the US “war on terror” prison in the middle of next month.
He said others among the 13 Chinese Uighurs at Guantanamo had accepted the offer, but did not give details.
Uighurs are a minority Muslim and Turkic-speaking group in China’s northwest.
The detainees were part of a group of 22 Uighurs living in a camp in Afghanistan when the US-led invasion of the country began in October 2001, in the wake of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.
They said they had fled to Afghanistan to escape persecution in their vast home region of Xinjiang. The US cleared them of any wrongdoing four years ago, but they remained in legal limbo, with Washington unwilling to send them back to China, despite Beijing’s demands.
China wanted the detainees returned home to be tried, saying they belonged to the separatist East Turkestan Islamic Movement. But US officials refused to extradite the Uighurs, amid fears they could face torture.
Four of the original group were flown to Bermuda in June from Guantanamo, where some 229 “war on terror” suspects are still held. Another five were released to Albania in 2006.
US President Barack Obama has promised to shut down Guantanamo by January and Washington has been pushing for other countries to accept inmates with no charges against them.
Toribiong announced in June that his country, with a population of about 21,000 people, had agreed in principle to provide a temporary home for the Uighur detainees.
He has denied any link between agreeing to accept the detainees and negotiations over future US aid to Palau, saying the decision was made as a “humanitarian gesture.”
Made up of more than 586 islands, of which only nine are inhabited, Palau lies about 800km east of the Philippines, and was administered by the US until independence in 1994.
‘IN A DIFFERENT PLACE’: The envoy first visited Shanghai, where he attended a Chinese basketball playoff match, and is to meet top officials in Beijing tomorrow US Secretary of State Antony Blinken yesterday arrived in China on his second visit in a year as the US ramps up pressure on its rival over its support for Russia while also seeking to manage tensions with Beijing. The US diplomat tomorrow is to meet China’s top brass in Beijing, where he is also expected to plead for restraint as Taiwan inaugurates president-elect William Lai (賴清德), and to raise US concerns on Chinese trade practices. However, Blinken is also seeking to stabilize ties, with tensions between the world’s two largest economies easing since his previous visit in June last year. At the
UNSETTLING IMAGES: The scene took place in front of TV crews covering the Trump trial, with a CNN anchor calling it an ‘emotional and unbelievably disturbing moment’ A man who doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire outside the courthouse where former US president Donald Trump is on trial has died, police said yesterday. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) said the man was declared dead by staff at an area hospital. The man was in Collect Pond Park at about 1:30pm on Friday when he took out pamphlets espousing conspiracy theories, tossed them around, then doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire, officials and witnesses said. A large number of police officers were nearby when it happened. Some officers and bystanders rushed
Beijing is continuing to commit genocide and crimes against humanity against Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in its western Xinjiang province, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a report published on Monday, ahead of his planned visit to China this week. The State Department’s annual human rights report, which documents abuses recorded all over the world during the previous calendar year, repeated language from previous years on the treatment of Muslims in Xinjiang, but the publication raises the issue ahead of delicate talks, including on the war in Ukraine and global trade, between the top U.S. diplomat and Chinese
RIVER TRAGEDY: Local fishers and residents helped rescue people after the vessel capsized, while motorbike taxis evacuated some of the injured At least 58 people going to a funeral died after their overloaded river boat capsized in the Central African Republic’s (CAR) capital, Bangui, the head of civil protection said on Saturday. “We were able to extract 58 lifeless bodies,” Thomas Djimasse told Radio Guira. “We don’t know the total number of people who are underwater. According to witnesses and videos on social media, the wooden boat was carrying more than 300 people — some standing and others perched on wooden structures — when it sank on the Mpoko River on Friday. The vessel was heading to the funeral of a village chief in