Thanks to Bush's war on terror, the Chinese regard these people as "terrorists" because they want political independence, just as the Tibetans want political independence.
Some of these people were rounded up in Pakistan because they were fingered by Pakistani locals as beings foreigners and different. Hey good enough, they must be terrorists and off to Gitmo they go.
Problem is they have nowhere to go. If they go back to China then they are in trouble there, and thanks to Cheney and his like they are terrorists and can't enter the USA.
The Uighur (WEE-grr, also Uyghur) are an ethnically Turkic group of Muslims in the formerly independent Republic of East Turkistan, which the Chinese call Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region. The large region makes up one-sixteenth of China's territory and borders three former Soviet central Asian Republics. sourceUsing Cheney terminology, "quite simply" they are stuck in a bullshit bureaucratic mess. Their plight needs some attention. It looks like the military recognizes the problem but doesn't seem to have the leniency or program to help them out.
Miami Herald: Stuck at Guantánamo, Uighurs demand freedom
A group of Muslims from China awaiting a court-ordered release staged a self-styled protest inside their prison camp Monday, waving signs demanding their freedom written in crayon on their Pentagon-issued art supplies.
Prison camp commanders have been seeking to afford the Uighurs greater freedoms short of giving them the run of the 45-square-mile base that has a port, airstrip, harbor and school system for sailors' children.
For example, the military has ordered 20 laptop computers to let the men set up a virtual computer lab and acquire some DVD-driven high technology skills in anticipation of their release.
''We were an oppressed nation in China,'' said one sign. ``Now we are being oppressed in America for a second time.''
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