The US yesterday appeared to reject a demand by China that all Chinese prisoners at Guantanamo Bay be handed back following US President Barack Obama’s decision to close the “war on terror” jail.
Beijing had called for the return of 17 Chinese prisoners that it said were part of a terror group seeking an independent homeland in the northwest of the country.
“These people are members of the East Turkestan Islamic Movement [ETIM] terrorist organization on a sanctioned list of the UN Security Council,” Chinese Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Jiang Yu (姜瑜) told reporters. “They should be handed over to China, which will handle the case by law.”
Obama signed an executive order on Thursday calling for the closure of Guantanamo Bay within a year, in a reversal of the policy of his predecessor George W. Bush.
But his administration yesterday said it could not imagine returning the detainees, from Xinjiang, home to 8.3 million Uighurs, a Muslim minority speaking a Turkic language.
Xinjiang is a vast area of mountains and deserts that borders Central Asia, and many of its Uighur population say they have suffered decades of repression under communist rule.
Uighur dissidents and some human rights groups have said China has exaggerated the threat from ETIM and other alleged terrorists in Xinjiang to justify a harsh security crackdown there.
“I cannot imagine that we would support transferring the Uighurs back to China,” a senior Obama administration official said on condition of anonymity.
“We are not going to transfer detainees to countries that will mistreat them,” the official said.
Jiang reiterated China’s opposition to other nations taking in Chinese Guantanamo Bay prisoners, after some European governments indicated their willingness to resettle detainees if the US closed the prison.
“China is against any country accepting those people and they should be returned to China as soon as possible,” she said.
In 2006, Albania granted asylum to five Chinese Uighurs after they were released from Guantanamo, much to the anger of China.
Nauru has started selling passports to fund climate action, but is so far struggling to attract new citizens to the low-lying, largely barren island in the Pacific Ocean. Nauru, one of the world’s smallest nations, has a novel plan to fund its fight against climate change by selling so-called “Golden Passports.” Selling for US$105,000 each, Nauru plans to drum up more than US$5 million in the first year of the “climate resilience citizenship” program. Almost six months after the scheme opened in February, Nauru has so far approved just six applications — covering two families and four individuals. Despite the slow start —
YELLOW SHIRTS: Many protesters were associated with pro-royalist groups that had previously supported the ouster of Paetongtarn’s father, Thaksin, in 2006 Protesters rallied on Saturday in the Thai capital to demand the resignation of court-suspended Thai Prime Minister Paetongtarn Shinawatra and in support of the armed forces following a violent border dispute with Cambodia that killed more than three dozen people and displaced more than 260,000. Gathered at Bangkok’s Victory Monument despite soaring temperatures, many sang patriotic songs and listened to speeches denouncing Paetongtarn and her father, former Thai prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra, and voiced their backing of the country’s army, which has always retained substantial power in the Southeast Asian country. Police said there were about 2,000 protesters by mid-afternoon, although
MOGAMI-CLASS FRIGATES: The deal is a ‘big step toward elevating national security cooperation with Australia, which is our special strategic partner,’ a Japanese official said Australia is to upgrade its navy with 11 Mogami-class frigates built by Japan’s Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, Australian Minister for Defence Richard Marles said yesterday. Billed as Japan’s biggest defense export deal since World War II, Australia is to pay US$6 billion over the next 10 years to acquire the fleet of stealth frigates. Australia is in the midst of a major military restructure, bolstering its navy with long-range firepower in an effort to deter China. It is striving to expand its fleet of major warships from 11 to 26 over the next decade. “This is clearly the biggest defense-industry agreement that has ever
DEADLY TASTE TEST: Erin Patterson tried to kill her estranged husband three times, police said in one of the major claims not heard during her initial trial Australia’s recently convicted mushroom murderer also tried to poison her husband with bolognese pasta and chicken korma curry, according to testimony aired yesterday after a suppression order lapsed. Home cook Erin Patterson was found guilty last month of murdering her husband’s parents and elderly aunt in 2023, lacing their beef Wellington lunch with lethal death cap mushrooms. A series of potentially damning allegations about Patterson’s behavior in the lead-up to the meal were withheld from the jury to give the mother-of-two a fair trial. Supreme Court Justice Christopher Beale yesterday rejected an application to keep these allegations secret. Patterson tried to kill her
RSS