Bern, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – The commission for political affairs of the lower House of the Swiss Parliament is recommending to the federal government that the country not accept two Chinese Uighur prisoners held at Guantanamo Bay. The group said Tuesday morning 12 January that its recommendation rests on four arguments, in order of importance.
- Switzerland should not take on the responsibility
- Guantanamo was created by the US and the US should solve the problem of where to send the prisoners
- Recent security incidents make it questionable to accept terrorist suspects
- relations with China could be harmed.
Bern, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – The Chinese Embassy in Bern 18 December warned the Swiss government over offers to take two brothers, inmates at the US Guantanamo centre in Cuba, but Bern says it was already clear that China was not happy, and the diplomatic issues were already under review. The Chinese warning surfaced in Swiss media this week when Le Matin Thursday published the story, later confirmed by the Swiss Police and Justice (SPJ) office.
The warning letter in fact came at a time of some confusion over Swiss offers to take Guantanamo detainees, the SPJ ministry has told media. One canton, Geneva, has to date officially offered, with federal government support, to take one inmate, an Ouzbek man.
Corrections 14:05 Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – The UNHCR (UN High Commissioner for Refugees) has denounced Cambodia’s forced return to China of 20 ethnic Uighur asylum-seekers before their claims were heard. The Geneva-based organization said it was “deeply distressed” at the news and concerned that “a disturbing pattern of such cases is increasingly evident around the world.”
Human rights groups condemn deportation
The 20 were deported Saturday 19 December as illegal immirants, reports Reuters AlertNet, an information service for humanitarian organizations. The move coincides with a trade visit to Cambodia by Chinese Vice-president Xi Jinping 21 December. Reuters AlertNet quotes a faxed statement from the Chinese Foreign Ministry, received by Reuters: “Recently, Cambodia deported 20 Chinese citizens in accordance with immigration laws for illegal entry into Cambodia. China received these people in accordance with usual practices,” but the statement also links the immigration crime to smuggling.
Several human rights groups have condemned the deportations, and US State Department’s spokesman Gordon Duguid says the US is “deeply disturbed” by the decision and the lack of appropriate participation by the UNHCR which, he warns, will affect its relations with Cambodia.”Now that the group has been returned to China,” says Duguid, “we urge the government of China to uphold international norms and to ensure transparency, due process and proper treatment of persons in its territory.”
Six men were sentenced to death 12 October for their role in the riots in Urumqi, Xinjiang province in western China that killed 197 people in early July. A seventh has been given a life sentence. The men, all reportedly ethnic Uighurs, are the first to be tried in what was China’s worst ethnic rioting in decades. They were convicted of murder, looting and rioting.
The victims were mostly Han Chinese in a historically Muslim ethnic Uighur region which has seen large-scale Han Chinese immigration over the past decades. The riots erupted after a clash at a toy factory earlier in eastern China left two Uighurs dead. AP, Xinhua
Police in Urumqi, in the western Chinese province of Xinjiang, have put down a third day of protests. Up to 2,000 people, mainly Han Chinese, it appears, have reportedly gathered in squares in the centre of the city, scene of ethnic riots in July between the local minority Han Chinese and the majority Uygurs. The protests are about a series of stabbings with hypodermic needles. Chinese state media says that 476 people from nine ethnic groups have sought hospital treatment for stab wounds, “of whom 89 were showing obvious signs of needle wounds.” BBC, Xinhua
Chinese president Hu Jintao abruptly left the G8 meeting in Italy 7 July and returned to China in order to deal with the deadly violence in the far western Xianjing region, which saw 156 people die 5 July. Hu was expected to join the meeting in Italy’s L’Aquila Thursday 8 July. Chinese authorities imposed a night-time curfew on the city of Urumqi, scene of the rioting and have massively increased the security presence on the streets in an effort to keep ethnic Han and Uighurs apart. Ethnic tensions in Tibet in July 2008 caused a worldwide outcry over Chinese handling of the situation. BBC, Reuters, Xinhua
Update 07:45 The death toll has risen to 140, say Chinese state media, and scores were wounded in an outbreak of “deadly violence” in Urumqi, the capital city of northwest China’s Xinjiang region Sunday 5 July. Hundreds of ethnic Uighur residents took to the streets and burned cars and buses, destroyed shops, and attacked passersby. Traffic controls in place Sunday were partially lifted Monday morning. The government blames a plot by an exiled ethnic Uighur group for the violence. Local activists deny outside interference and refer to a serious clash between ethnic Uighur workers and Han Chinese in a toy factory in Guangdong province in southern China late June 2009. BBC, Reuters, Xinhua
The US government has been talking to the island nation of Palau, reports CNN, about taking 17 prisoners from Guantanamo, part of President Obama’s plan to shut down the Cuban prison. Palau is a former US trust territory that became independent in 1994. The prisoners under consideration are a Chinese minority group of Muslims, Uighurs. Senior US officials confirmed the information a day after the first Guantanamo prisoner to be tried in the US arrived there, Ahmed Khalfan Ghailani.
Ghailani is Tanzanian, detained in Guantanamo since 2006, accused of participating in the simultaneous bombings of the US embassies in Kenya and Tanazania in 1998. He pleaded not guilty in federal court in Manhattan Tuesday 9 June. Reuters, BBC
