Guantanamo kidnapees still detained two years after exoneration

The BBC reports on a group of 15 Chinese Muslims still held at Guantanamo Bay despite being cleared by the US authorities two years ago. Washington won't return them to China, for fear they might be persecuted, but they won't let the exonerated Chinese into the US either. Ten of the men are said to be low-risk detainees who see the Chinese and not the US government as their main enemy. The other five simply happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time, and were picked up by Pakistani bounty hunters.

Disturbingly: Sabin Willett, a Boston lawyer who is representing several of the Uighurs, said the fact of their acquittal was not revealed to the men for several months.

"They clearly were keeping secret that these men were acquitted," he said, quoted by the Washington Post.
"They were found not to be al-Qaeda and not to be Taleban. But the government still refused to provide a transcript of the tribunal that acquitted them to the detainees, their new lawyers or a US court."

Mr Willett also told a hearing earlier this month that during detention at least one of his clients was forced to wear a leg shackle chained to a bolt in the floor.

Remember how some objected to me referring to Gitmo prisoners as 'kidnapees'? Well, tell me how these folks aren't kidnapees. Remember when Bush administration apologists insisted that the Patriot Act was a wonderful thing and we should accept it entirely, unquestioningly and permanently? Remember how they insisted that only bad guys would be affected by such things and the bad guys didn't need or deserve due process anyway? Remember when the apologists insisted that the contrived military tribunals for the Guantanamo kidnapees would address all the worries from chicken littles like the ACLU, Human Rights Watch, the Red Cross, etc? Remember how they insisted everyone be patient and things would get sorted out quickly? Remember how they said it wasn't a big deal that the military was allowed to be judge, jury and executioner for these terrorists... er accused terrorists... er suspected terrorists? Remember how the apologists insisted that the worst thing happening is a guard accidentally dropping a Koran? Remember how the administration's apologists insisted there nothing to worry about on trivialities like civil liberties or basic humanity?

As usual, they were wrong.