Some Gitmo Prisoners Don't Want to Go Home

[ECH1969]

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico - Fearing militants or even their own governments, some prisoners at Guantanamo Bay from China, Saudi Arabia and other nations do not want to go home, according to transcripts of hearings at the U.S. prison in Cuba.

Uzbekistan, Yemen, Algeria and Syria are also among the countries to which detainees do not want to return. The inmates have told military tribunals that they or their families could be tortured or killed if they are sent back.

A man from Syria who was detained along with his father pleaded with the tribunal for help getting them political asylum — in any country that will take them.

"You've been saying 'terrorists, terrorists.' If we return, whether we did something or not, there's no such things as human rights. We will be killed immediately," he said. "You know this very well."

Link

[Terran1212]

1. That's sad

So bad back home they don't even want to leave Gitmo.

[bunyip]

19. Of those countries

Saudi Arabia, Yemen and Algeria are all allies of the United States. And yes, Bush threatens Syria in public, but the CIA still "renders" suspects to Syria for "questioning".

I wonder what kind of "homecoming" party is planned?

Freedom is on the march. Freedom is messy.

[IsItJustMe]

2. Yeah right, and you believe the msm?

I trust them about as far as I can throw them, along with this article. Sounds like RW indoctrination. Gitmo just another club med now isn't it?

[Igel]

4. The Uighurs were in the news a year or so ago.

The Chinese government isn't very nice to potential Uighur separatists.

[0007]

10. I don't know what to believe anymore. And I certainly don't

know who to trust. Big corporations are running this country and have no empathy for the common man.

We are so screwed!

[Marie26]

26. Gitmo can be bad

But dead is a lot worse. If it's true that some of these men could be executed as collaborators if they return, I can see how they would prefer to stay in the US. Actually, if they face persecution, it seems like a pretty good case for political asylum.

[movonne]

3. in other words their country is worse that gitmo...some of these countries

are our friends..

[stillcool]

5. more from article...

Inmates have told military tribunals they worry about reprisals from militants who will suspect them of cooperating with U.S. authorities in its war on terror. Others say their own governments may target them for reasons that have nothing to do with why they were taken to Guantanamo Bay in the first place.

Saudi identified only as Yasim, who said he attended an al-Qaida training camp in Afghanistan and was jailed in his country for selling drugs, told the tribunal that after being repeatedly interrogated at Guantanamo, he fears his fellow prisoners as well as others back in Saudi Arabia.
"I can't go back to my country. I have been threatened to be killed by many people," he said, according to the transcripts, which the Pentagon released Friday in response to a Freedom of Information Act Lawsuit filed by The Associated Press

[TallahasseeGrannie]

6. Then maybe we could arrange asylum

in another country for them?

[stillcool]

9. it looks like a federal judge denied two of the detainees...

request to be released in the US....to a family willing to take them in.

Two of the Uighurs are appealing a federal judge's rejection of their request to be released in the United States, where a family in the Washington suburbs has offered to take them in.

and then there's this...

A military tribunal has determined that five are "no longer enemy combatants" and can be released from Guantanamo Bay. The U.S. agrees they could face persecution back in China but so far has not found a third country to take them.

[mom cat]

17. Read the transcripts yourself. There are a lot of them who DO want to

go home. Pointing out the ones who don't is psy opps.

[oblivious]

22. "I have been threatened to be killed by many people"

I wonder if they phone, mail or email their death threats. How does one send a threat to a GB inmate anyway?

Doesn't this sound a bit ...... strange?

[cantstandbush]

7. We have made victims of many innocent people and made some

terrorists in the process.

[Mandate My Ass]

11. Exactly. Just because they don't dare go home

doesn't mean Gitmo isn't hell on earth and that their detention had or has any positive effect either on them or the American people who sponsored this illegal detention.

Besides, the lemon chicken is divine I hear. :eyes:

[zbdent]

8. Some probably have been detained so long they could

apply for citizenship . . . of course, they'd fail the test because they wouldn't know what rights they would have as citizens . . .

[bullimiami]

12. oh please can i stay here mr american soldier. i like it here.

rigggghhhhhhht.

[Lisa]

13. some of them could well be scooped up by their own governments ...

... as soon as they get off the plane. Just because they've "come to the notice of the authorities". After what happened to Maher Arar (the Canadian who was whisked off to Syria and tortured, when he was grabbed by the US government while changing planes in New York) -- I wouldn't be surprised if he didn't want to go anywhere near Syria!

[demosincebirth]

14. I gues we'll just have to bring

them over to the States and let them live here at our expense. What do you think?

[muriel_volestrangler]

23. That would seem to be what the US is obliged to do under international law

They have a well founded fear of persecution in their home country, and so can claim asylum in the country they find themselves in, ie the USA (because the USA is in charge of Guantanamo). They should be allowed to seek work, and given a minimum standard of assistance while they do that.

[woodsprite]

15. Must be those chicken dinners. n/t

[Lydia Leftcoast]

16. Actually, I would not be surprised if this is partly true

After WWII, Stalin imprisoned a lot of Soviet citizens who had been in German P.O.W. camps on the grounds that they had probably collaborated with the enemy.

[seemunkee]

18. Yes, a friend of mine confirmed this

He knows Arabic and is very good at identifying different nationalities. He was asked to question a few people down there. A couple of Moroccans were there that had been told they could get jobs in Europe. Once they got to Europe they were sent to Al Qaeda camps in Afghanistan. They had no money no education and no way to get back home so they went. Ended up getting captured by US troops. All they wanted was a job to send money back home. They released the men to back to Morocco were they will most likely be branded as terrorists and jailed or killed by the one who originally recruited them to go to Europe.

[saigon68]

20. They want to stay in Gitmo

For the fine food

For the attractive rooms

The beautiful plated handcuffs and leg shackles

[Stockholm]

21. Stockholm syndrom big time!

n/t

[underpants]

24. None of this had anything to do with their being at Gitmo

Nothing so stop saying that.

This isn't surprising. They are truly dead men walking, in many ways.

[Bridget Burke]

25. Even though they want to leave Gitmo....

Some of them will be in danger if they return home. Will they be considered "terrorists" by their own country's government? Will they be considered "traitors or spies" by the politically active?

If they are granted asylum, it must be in the USA.