The Washington Times
  • Subscribe
  • Times News Services
  • RSS
  • Mobile Headlines
  • e-edition
  • E-MAIL ALERTS
  • REGISTER
  • LOG IN
  • E-MAIL ALERTS
  • WELCOME
  • Your Profile
  • Log Out
  • Front Page Image
  • Classifieds
  • Autos
  • Real Estate
  • Jobs
  • Special Sections
  • Customer Service
  • Home
  • News
  • Opinion
  • Sports
    • NFL
    • NBA/WNBA
    • MLB
    • NHL
    • Tennis
    • Golf
    • Motorsports
    • Soccer
    • NCAA
    • Olympics
    • Outdoors
    • Other
  • Culture
    • Home & Living
    • Family & Kids
    • Fashion
    • Food
    • Travel
    • Health
    • Washington Visitors
    • Books
    • Military History
    • Life
    • Auto
    • TV Listings
    • Movie Listings
    • Death Notices
    • Entertainment
  • Themes
  • Communities
  • Shopping
    • Stores
    • Coupons
    • Daily Double
    • Promotion
    • How It Works
  • Videos
    • Two Guys
    • Birnbaum on Washington
    • Liz Glover
    • Amanda Carpenter
    • Morning Briefing
    • Documentaries
    • Joe Giganti
    • Video Game Minute
  • Podcasts
    • About Headlines
    • Audio and Radio
    • America's Morning News
  • Politics

    Sanford faces 37 charges on state ethics laws

  • Politics

    Lobbyists spending big to shape health care debate

  • National

    Green energy stimulus growing few jobs

  • National

    9/11 defendants eye platform

  • Entertainment

    Jackson wins 4 American Music Awards

  • Politics

    Unemployment taxes hit small firms hard

  • Sports

    Redskins' loss like a kick in the gut

Home » Culture » Life

Saturday, October 11, 2008

Local Uighurs set to help detainees

Rate this story

Average 0.00
after 0 votes
Login or register to rate this story

17 on verge of Gitmo release

  • Font Size -+
  • Print
  • Email
  • Comment
  • Tweet this!
  • Share
  • Article
  • Comments ()
  • Click-2-Listen
  • Videos

More Life Stories

  • Bishops' letter defines marriage
  • Inner-city peers sent to college together
  • Women still must keep house
  • Bad times, good deals

By Matthew Barakat ASSOCIATED PRESS

For centuries, hospitality to weary travelers has been part of the Uighur culture. The Uighur land in what is now the far western province of China carried merchants traversing the famed Silk Road.

So in many ways, it was only natural for Elshat Hassan, 46, of McLean, to open his home to the most weary of his countrymen. He plans to host one of 17 Uighurs who have been detained by the United States for nearly seven years at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

"They will be free, finally," Mr. Hassan said of the detainees. He described plans to prepare the traditional meal of polo for Uighur guests: a pilaf consisting of rice, lamb, carrots and onions.

The tiny Uighur (WEE-gur) community in the Washington area has been largely anonymous but is suddenly in the spotlight. A federal judge this week brushed aside White House objections and ordered the 17 Uighurs to be freed inside the United States.

Under the judge's order, the detainees will live in the Washington area with Uighur-Americans who have agreed to take them in. The detainees were to have arrived on Friday, but the judge's ruling has been put on hold while an appeals court reviews the ruling.

Mr. Hassan said he does not anticipate neighbors reacting fearfully to the presence of a Guantanamo detainee. When his co-workers at McLean-based CIA contractor Booz Allen Hamilton learned of his plans to sponsor a detainee, several extended dinner invitations when the time comes.

Nury Turkel, a past president of the Uyghur American Association, frequently gets blank stares from Americans when he identifies himself as a Uighur-American. But he has a ready answer.

"We're just like Tibet," Mr. Turkel, 38, said. "Just like the Tibetans, Uighurs face discrimination ... and brutal oppression under Chinese rule."

With no Dalai Lama to promote their cause, the Uighurs' bid for autonomy and cultural survival in their Central Asian homeland north of Tibet has largely been anonymous. China's Xinjiang province, which the Uighurs call home, shares a narrow, mountainous frontier with Afghanistan's eastern extreme, which juts like a finger between Pakistan and Tajikistan.

Mr. Turkel guessed that only 1,000 or so Uighurs live in the United States, with the largest concentration near the nation's capital. Most have come as refugees or to seek higher education, and he said Uighurs have one of the highest approval rates in the U.S. for asylum applications.

The Uighurs are Turkic ethnically and linguistically. They are Muslims, generally regarded as moderate in their beliefs. Human rights groups say the Chinese government has been brutal in its suppression of Uighur culture and religion.

The Chinese government says the Uighur detainees are part of a dangerous international Islamic terrorist group called the East Turkestan Islamic Movement and has demanded the detainees' extradition.

The Bush administration concedes that the Uighurs never intended to fight the United States but insists that the detainees are still a danger because they trained with radical Islamic militants in Afghanistan.

The detainees' supporters in the Uighur-American community say Uighurs are staunchly pro-American.

Mr. Hassan said that despite the unfair treatment the detainees have received, the fact that the United States is refusing Chinese demands for extradition will go a long way toward damping anti-American sentiments that may have festered among the detainees during their detention.

"If they go to China, their destiny is death," Mr. Hassan said. "They have suffered for seven years in Guantanamo, and it's unfair. ... But compared with death, they're still alive."

An American university professor who has studied the Uighurs and traveled frequently to Xinjiang province, or East Turkistan as it's called by Uighurs, said the comparisons of the political situations in Tibet and Xinjiang are generally valid.

The professor, who requested anonymity because he fears speaking on the record about the Uighurs could prompt Chinese authorities to bar him from traveling there, said the Uighurs' struggles with Beijing have largely been nationalistic and secular, rather than part of a broad international Islamic terror group like al Qaeda.

Still, while the Chinese have exaggerated the Uighurs' links to Islamic terror groups, he said they are not entirely fabricated, either.

[Get Copyright Permissions] Click here for reprint permissions!
Copyright 2009 The Washington Times, LLC

Post a comment

There are comments on this article, submit your opinion!

Please login or register to post a comment

Ask a Question

You Report

Do you have another point of view, photos, audio, video or more information about a story?

Top Stories

Most Read

  1. Massive bill steals show in health care debate
  2. Report: D.C. schools chief Rhee mishandled sexual misconduct scandal
  3. Islamic center in Maryland keeps ties to Iran
  4. Religious leaders vow civil disobedience on anti-life issues
  5. EDITORIAL EXCLUSIVE: On terrorists, Justice recused
More Top Stories »
  1. KELLNER: New Apple mouse really is 'Magic'
  2. EXCLUSIVE: Hoffman considering recount claim
  3. Senate health care bill creates new marriage penalty
  4. EDITORIAL: Gunning for Sarah Palin
  5. Report: ACORN mismanaged grant money

Most Shared

  1. Ego of 'O': It's all about him
  2. Religious leaders vow civil disobedience on anti-life issues
  3. Green energy stimulus growing few jobs
  4. EDITORIAL: Schumer's change of heart
  5. Unemployment taxes hit small firms hard
More Top Stories »
  1. EDITORIAL: Death for being a Christian
  2. EDITORIAL EXCLUSIVE: On terrorists, Justice recused
  3. VMI faces probe into sexism
  4. Company that repaired Chairman Gray's house lacked license
  5. Islamic center in Maryland keeps ties to Iran

Most Commented

  1. Work site arrests of illegals fall dramatically
  2. ANALYSIS: Obama takes a bow, but applause is weak
  3. Senate Democrats win key vote on health bill
  4. Islamic center in Maryland keeps ties to Iran
  5. EDITORIAL: Gunning for Sarah Palin
More Top Stories »
  1. Lobbyists spending big to shape health care debate
  2. Schumer: Dems will pass health bill alone
  3. Green energy stimulus growing few jobs
  4. EDITORIAL: Schumer's change of heart
  5. Religious leaders vow civil disobedience on anti-life issues

Listen to Washington Times Radio

  • America's Morning News

    with John McCaslin and Melanie Morgan

Question of the day

Do you think the public option will survive when the full Senate votes on the health reform bill?

Blogs & Columns

  • Hot Button Blog

    RNC: Breast cancer recommendations may lead to 'rationing'

  • Belief Blog

    Evangelicals OK civil disobedience

  • Out of Context

    Foods that might kill libido

  • On the Fly

    United lifts some 'award' blocking

  • Technology

    Facebook wins round against phishing spammer

  • Redskins 360

    Mason returns

  • SNOBlog

    Beyond 'Woody'

Videos

Advertising Links
TWT Store
  • e-edition
  • Print Edition
  • Weekly Washington Times
TWT Affiliates
  • Middle East Times
  • Golf
  • UPI
  • Arbor Ballroom
  • Washington Times Global
  • About TWT
  • Press Room
  • F.A.Q.
  • Work for TWT
  • Advertise
  • Sponsors
  • Contact Us
  • Privacy Policy
  • Site Map

All site contents © Copyright 2009 The Washington Times, LLC.