Showdown ahead over 17 Uighur detainees | csmonitor.com

Showdown ahead over 17 Uighur detainees | csmonitor.com: "Showdown ahead over 17 Uighur detainees
The Justice Department says the judiciary does not have the power to release Guantánamo detainees into the US.
By Warren Richey | Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor

from the October 10, 2008 edition
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Reporter Warren Richey talks about the US government's effort to block the release of 17 Uighurs from Guantanamo into the US.

A dispute over what to do about 17 Chinese Muslims detained at the Guantánamo Bay military prison is developing into a major showdown over the power of the judiciary to enforce fundamental constitutional rights in the war on terror.

The 17 men, all members of the oppressed Uighur ethnic minority in western China, have been held as enemy combatants by the US military for seven years, despite their insistence that they are not enemies of the US.

On Tuesday, a federal judge in Washington, D.C., ordered the government to release the men. But US District Judge Ricardo Urbina didn't stop there. He also ordered the government to bring the Uighurs physically from Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, to his courthouse chambers on Friday where they would be allowed to walk as free men out the front door and down the steps of the courthouse.

Justice"