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

Abu Bakker Qassim and A’del Abdu al-Hakim have been held in Guantanamo Bay since June 2002 after they were captured by bounty hunters in Pakistan in 2001. At the time they were fleeing China in search of religious and political sanctuary and in the chaos involving the “enemy combatant” round-up that led to anyone and everyone being handed over for American dollars, bounty hunters sold them to America and they were locked up.

Last year, the U.S. military determined that they were not in fact “enemy combatants.” You’d think then that everything would then be find and dandy for Abu Bakker Wassim and A’del Abdu al-Hakim.

However, both are still residents of Guantanamo Bay and their address doesn’t look likely to change any time soon.

The Bush Administration wisely says it cannot return them to China as they are Uighurs and would face persecution there. “Beijing has frequently cracked down on Uighur dissidents, who are seeking autonomy in the country’s north-western Xinjiang province. The Chinese government accuses Uighur militants of waging a bombing and assassination campaign, and receiving training at al-Qaeda camps in Afghanistan.” [“Guantamao Uighur Appeal Rejected” (BBC News)]

The problem is that these men are innocent. They’re still in prison.

The Bush Administration doesn’t want them in the U.S. for some reason — you’d think after such a screw up, we might want to make it up to them, make nice.

I just don’t get why someone isn’t making a bigger deal about this. If these were Americans being held in a prison somewhere, we’d be all up in arms. These are innocent men. They’ve been proven to be innocent. We are violating their rights, holding them indefinitely for no reason. That’s it’s own kind of torture, in my opinion. These men have lives we’re stealing from them. This is that Freedom we’re bringing to the Middle East.

tags: Abu Bakker Qassim, A'del Abdu al-Hakim, Guantanamo Bay, detainees, innocent, Freedoms

7 comments

1. on April 21, 2006 at 10:47 am

   enzo said:

   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.

2. on April 21, 2006 at 10:54 am

   n. mallory said:

   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.

3. on April 21, 2006 at 11:16 am

   enzo said:

   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.

4. on April 21, 2006 at 11:19 am

   n. mallory said:

   Thanks for clarifying.

5. on April 21, 2006 at 11:53 am

   enzo said:

   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.

6. on September 20, 2006 at 8:35 pm

   Susan said:

   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.

7. on September 20, 2006 at 9:40 pm

   n. mallory said:

   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.

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