U.S. helped Chinese interrogate Uighurs at Guantanamo

[Snazzy]

Source: McClatchy

McClatchy Washington Bureau

Posted on Thu, Jul. 16, 2009

U.S. helped Chinese interrogate Uighurs at Guantanamo
Grace Chung | McClatchy Newspapers

last updated: July 16, 2009 09:22:51 PM

WASHINGTON — U.S. military personnel at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, actively helped Chinese interrogators question members of China's Uighur minority, including physically restraining them so they could be photographed against their will, according to testimony presented Thursday to a congressional subcommittee.

The testimony is certain to add to the controversy over how the U.S. government has handled the Uighurs, who were turned over to U.S. troops in Afghanistan by bounty hunters who were paid $5,000 per captive.

Eventually, the Uighurs were cleared of any connection to terrorism and ordered released from Guantanamo. Nine have been freed; 13 more remain at the prison as officials scour the world for a country that will take them.

Human rights advocates have accused the U.S. of helping China gather information from the Uighurs for use against their friends and families back home, where tension between the predominantly Muslim Uighurs and the dominant Han Chinese frequently breaks into public protest and violence.

On Sunday, 192 people died and 1,600 people were injured in one of the largest ethnic clashes in years when Chinese riot police battled Uighur protesters in Urumqi, the capital of Xingjian province in northwest China.

Read more: http://www.mcclatchydc.com/world/story/72000.html

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(mods, should you visit--this is the more important of the two stories I posted on this topic. While it is nice that Jim Moran wants accountability and AFP noticed, the real news is here. I came across this later).

[EFerrari]

1. I'm glad you posted this in light of the riots but it's a little odd.

Amy had this right around the time the Uighurs were reportedly afraid to go to Palau because it might not be safe. What was that, two or three weeks ago? How come McClatchy only has it now? I don't remember Amy's source. It may have been Jeremy Scahill but I wouldn't swear on a stack of anything.

[Snazzy]

2. I was thinking about the AFP article

further down lbn, and how they often take a bite of some US source instead of original reporting, and that + a search got me on McC. But you are right, we have heard bits and pieces of this, like a lot of the bad that was going on in all these prisons and black sites, for some time.

There were congressional hearings yesterday. Somehow I've been missing coverage on most of this recently. Had no idea about the "hearings" at the "war court" in gitmo with the press, 9/11 families etc flown down there. What prompted my slew of Gitmo stories. Nothing in 2 pages of lbn anyway.

[EFerrari]

3. It is weird the way these stories keep getting reported as if for the first time.

And I missed those hearings in the Sotomayor frenzy.

[Solly Mack]

4. K&R. This keeps coming out

US helping China to interrogate Uighurs.

Maybe it's just gone from suspected to fact...

But this isn't the first time it's come up at all.

[fasttense]

5. It seems that capitalism has made the US more like Communist China

Instead of making Communist China more like the US.