Comments on: Free Abu Bakker Qassim and A’del Abdu al-Hakim

By: enzo

enzo — Fri, 21 Apr 2006 15:47:34 +0000

Great post. Thank you for writing about these two unfortunate Uighurs of Xinjiang. Hopefully they will never be sent back to China. I write almost every day about the Uighurs and have a weblog called Xinjiang News. Still, I have nothing in common with them, but I love their history and traditions and their struggle for autonomy. I have studied them for years. Thanks again. BTW you have an excellent website. I mean it.

By: n. mallory

n. mallory — Fri, 21 Apr 2006 15:54:29 +0000

Thanks. I’ve been meaning to write a follow-up actually. This week in the papers that the Pentagon released, it turns out that there are even more Uighurs among the detainees than just those two. I just don’t understand why no one is doing anything to help them.

By: enzo

enzo — Fri, 21 Apr 2006 16:16:08 +0000

According to the Uighur Human Rights Project “since 2001, the US has held at least 22 Uyghur detainees in Guantanamo” (http://www.uhrp.org/news)
It is possible that the other Uighurs detained in prison are from Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan.
Abu Bakker Qassim and A’del Abdu al-Hakim are the only two from the Chinese region of Xinjiang.

By: n. mallory

n. mallory — Fri, 21 Apr 2006 16:19:16 +0000

Thanks for clarifying.

By: enzo

enzo — Fri, 21 Apr 2006 16:53:40 +0000

My pleasure. OT: I also love writing and have published a book a few years ago. I have now finished my second and started my third one. By profession I’m not a writer. If writing gives you pleasure, don’t give up.

By: Susan

Susan — Thu, 21 Sep 2006 00:35:24 +0000

FYI, Abu Bakker Qassim, Adel Abdul Hakkim and three other Uighurs who the government conceeded were innocent were sent by the US to Albania in May, one business day before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circut was to hear the Qassim v. Bush case. They have been granted asylum in Albania.

There are currently 17 Uighurs incarcerated at Guantanamo.

By: n. mallory

n. mallory — Thu, 21 Sep 2006 01:40:59 +0000

Thanks, Susan! I was just thinking today that I needed to got through and do some following up on these detainees and also on Cyrus Kar, who was the American who was held in Iraq for almost 2 months.