3 Uighurs at Guantanamo ask Canada for asylum

By ROB GILLIES
Associated Press Writer

Three Chinese detainees cleared for release from the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay have applied for political asylum in Canada, lawyers for the men and a group sponsoring them said Tuesday.

The men are among 17 Chinese Muslims called Uighurs (pronounced WEE'-gurz) at Guantanamo. The U.S. has cleared them for release but fears they could be mistreated or even tortured if they are turned over to China, which alleges they are terrorists who belong to an outlawed separatist group.

Two of the inmates applied last week and one applied last October, said Mehmet Tohti, a member of the Uighur Canadian Association, a non-profit cultural organization that is part of the group sponsoring the men's request for asylum.

Tohti said there has been no government response so far to the Uighurs' request. But Canada has refused several requests from Washington in the past to provide asylum for Uighurs cleared for release from Guantanamo.

Danielle Norris, a spokeswoman for Canada's Citizenship and Immigration government agency, said without the consent of the men she could not speak to their specific cases because of privacy laws.

Norris said in an e-mail that the number one focus of the department is protecting the security of Canadians and that any applicant would face rejection if there were reasonable grounds to believe they have "engaged or will engage in acts of terrorism."

Seema Saifee, a New York-based lawyer who represents the other two Uighurs, said the economic and diplomatic threat of straining relations with China by accepting the Uighurs is enough to scare a number of governments away from taking them.

Canada - like other countries - has seemed ill at ease in the past with taking on Guantanamo prisoners to remedy a massive headache for the U.S.

The former Bush administration set up Guantanamo in January 2002 for suspected al-Qaida and Taliban prisoners, many of them plucked from battlefields in Afghanistan. They were deemed "enemy combatants" and most were never charged with any crime, or given a trial. The prison was condemned repeatedly by human rights groups and many governments.

In one of his first acts as president, Barack Obama ordered Guantanamo shut down within a year. Last month, Obama gave a U.S. task force 30 days to recommend where to put the 245 remaining detainees.

The former Bush administration contended that the Uighurs were too dangerous to be admitted to the U.S. Albania accepted five Uighur detainees in 2006 but has since balked at taking others, partly for fear of diplomatic repercussions from China.

Notes prepared for former Foreign Affairs Minister Peter MacKay in February 2007, obtained by The Canadian Press news agency under Canada's Access to Information Act, indicate the Bush administration asked Canada to accept Uighur detainees who were deemed to be no threat to national security.

Canadian officials indicated to the U.S. that the men would likely be inadmissible under Canadian immigration law, according to a Foreign Affairs briefing note prepared about a meeting in 2007.

Lawyer George Clarke, whose client Anwar Hassan applied to Canada last October, said Hassan was sent to Guantanamo after being captured in Pakistan in 2002.

"At this point, he is looking forward, not backward, and wants to get on with the rest of his life," Clarke said an e-mail.

Saifee said Canada could help the U.S. by accepting the Uighurs. "It would be a very wonderful gesture of goodwill."

Canadian opposition Liberal Senator Colin Kenny said the United States should deal with Guantanamo itself.

"Why should people clean up their dirty business?" Kenny said. "I don't have much sympathy with the Americans for creating that prison."

Kenny, however, said the only Canadian at Guantanamo, Omar Khadr, should be returned to Canada. Khadr is accused of killing a U.S. medic in Afghanistan. Canada's Conservative government has not asked for his return but has come under pressure to bring him back to Canada.