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winterbadgerhttp://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/6189517.stm
America's former terror suspects are embarking on new lives as refugees in Albania.
The impoverished eastern European nation has become the new destination for a special category of prisoner - men whom the US feels it is right to release but risky to repatriate.
...
Adil Abdul Hakim was one of the first to arrive there.
...
Adil is one of five former Guantanamo detainees from China's Xinjiang province living in a country thousands of miles away from home, with a language and customs alien to them.
...
The five men from Xinjiang are ethnic Uighurs, who practise Islam and speak a Turkic language, unlike most Chinese.
Having brought the men from Afghanistan, the US military later ruled they were "no longer enemy combatants" and posed no threat to the US.
The military decided the men must be released - but this posed new problems.
China regarded them as Uighur separatist militants and demanded the US return them so they may face charges at home.
The US State Department said they would face torture if sent back to China and set about trying to find them another home.
"The US position is clear - we will not send individuals to places where we believe it is more than likely they will be tortured," Ms Hodgkinson says.
In summer 2006, Albania agreed to welcome the five men as refugees. The Chinese were infuriated and their ambassador in Tirana rebuked the Albanians.
[If a solution makes the Chinese angry, there must be something right about it...]
America's former terror suspects are embarking on new lives as refugees in Albania.
The impoverished eastern European nation has become the new destination for a special category of prisoner - men whom the US feels it is right to release but risky to repatriate.
...
Adil Abdul Hakim was one of the first to arrive there.
...
Adil is one of five former Guantanamo detainees from China's Xinjiang province living in a country thousands of miles away from home, with a language and customs alien to them.
...
The five men from Xinjiang are ethnic Uighurs, who practise Islam and speak a Turkic language, unlike most Chinese.
Having brought the men from Afghanistan, the US military later ruled they were "no longer enemy combatants" and posed no threat to the US.
The military decided the men must be released - but this posed new problems.
China regarded them as Uighur separatist militants and demanded the US return them so they may face charges at home.
The US State Department said they would face torture if sent back to China and set about trying to find them another home.
"The US position is clear - we will not send individuals to places where we believe it is more than likely they will be tortured," Ms Hodgkinson says.
In summer 2006, Albania agreed to welcome the five men as refugees. The Chinese were infuriated and their ambassador in Tirana rebuked the Albanians.
[If a solution makes the Chinese angry, there must be something right about it...]
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no subject
Date: 2007-01-12 03:47 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-01-12 06:18 pm (UTC)I am glad, but...may I still *facepalm* at the hypocricy?
no subject
Date: 2007-01-12 06:50 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-01-13 04:26 pm (UTC)Thank you.