Uyghur detainees at Guantanamo Bay

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Starting in 2002, the American government detained 22 Uyghurs in the Guantanamo Bay detainment camp. The last 3 Uyghur detainees, Yusef Abbas, Hajiakbar Abdulghupur and Saidullah Khali, were released from Guantanamo on December 29, 2013, and later transferred to Slovakia. Uyghurs are an ethnic group from Central Asia, native to the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region in Western China. Since China gained control of Xinjiang in 1949, Uyghurs led a series of rebellions and uprisings against the Chinese, gaining intense leverage in the 90s and early 2000s, culminating in a series of protests, demonstrations, and terrorist attacks. Uyghurs have also frequently called for the international recognition of their own state through the East Turkestan Islamic Movement, which the United States used to recognize as a terrorist group. The Washington Post reported on August 24, 2005, that fifteen Uyghurs had been determined to be "No longer enemy combatants" (NLECs). The Post reported that detainees who had been classified as NLEC were, not only still being incarcerated, but one was shackled to the floor for reasons not disclosed by his attorney. Five of these Uyghurs, who had filed for writs of habeas corpus, were transported to Albania on May 5, 2006, just prior to a scheduled judicial review of their petitions. The other seventeen obtained writs of habeas corpus in 2008.

Several of the detainees admitted receiving training on the AK 47, including Bahtiyar Mahnut, Yusef Abbas, and Abdul Hehim. They described being trained by East Turkestan Islamic Movement leaders Abdul Haq and Hassan Maksum. At least one described being trained on a pistol. The Uyghurs who were present at the alleged camp reported that they did not expect their camp to be bombed. Some of them acknowledged that they had heard of the September 11 attacks on the radio, but none of them knew that the Taliban were accused of involvement. They all acknowledged having fled the camp when it was bombed. They all stated that they were unarmed. One of the Uyghurs said Maksum was killed in the bombing. None of the Uyghurs described seeing the United States as an enemy. All of the Uyghurs who mentioned the People's Republic of China described its government as an oppressive occupation. Some of the Uyghurs said that they sought out the training in order to go back to China and defend their fellow Uyghurs against their Chinese occupiers. Some of the other Uyghurs said they sought out the camp of fellow Uyghurs because they were waiting for a visa to Iran, one of the countries they had to pass through on their way to Turkey. They had heard that Turkey would grant them political asylum.