Urge Obama and Holder to release 17 Uighur Guantanamo prisoners
February 2009
The Maryknoll Office for Global Concerns and other organizations aligned with Witness Against Torture are urging President Barack Obama and Attorney General Eric Holder to right a seven-year wrong, and immediately lift the Bush administration’s appeal of Judge Ricardo Urbina’s order to release the 17 Uighurs imprisoned in Guantanamo. This act would let stand Urbina’s October 7 order to bring the men into the United States immediately. Part of a Muslim ethnic minority in China, the Uighurs would likely be tortured by the Chinese government if returned to China.
Witness Against Torture is coordinating national call-in days for U.S. citizens to plead with Attorney General Holder and President Obama to withdraw the Bush administration’s appeal. Earlier this week, a group dressed in orange jumpsuits and black hoods processed from the White House to the Justice Department to raise awareness of this campaign. (See video here.)
TAKE ACTION: Call the White House at 202-456-1111 and the Justice Department at 202-514-2001. Your message: 1) Thank you for the executive order to shut down Guantanamo. 2) The Obama administration should drop the Bush administration's appeal of Judge Urbina's order to release the 17 Uighurs into the United States.
You can also send an email to the White House.
The call-in effort is part of the 100 Days Campaign to Close Guantanamo and End Torture, which began a daily vigil from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. in front of the White House on January 21. The vigil will continue until April 30, the first 100 days of Obama’s administration.
“Every new day of imprisonment without charge is another cruel injustice for all the men held at Guantanamo, but especially for the Uighurs, who have already been exonerated and ordered released by a U.S. court of law,” said Carmen Trotta of Witness Against Torture. “At the vigil, when we tell bystanders about the hopeless political limbo these men are in, they are outraged too. We’re only asking for the change President Obama promised: restoration of the rule of law.”
All three branches of the federal government acknowledge that the Uighurs were never “enemy combatants” against the U.S. - they were sold to U.S. forces by bounty hunters. The Justice Department under the Bush administration immediately appealed Urbina’s ruling, however, and the Uighurs have remained imprisoned under maximum security conditions.
For more information, visit the 100 Days Campaign to Close Guantanamo and End Torture.