Canada could take some Guanatanamo Uighurs: report

Canada could take some Guanatanamo Uighurs: report
Wed Feb 4, 2009 10:02am EST


OTTAWA (Reuters) - Canada could accept three Chinese Moslem Uighur men who are imprisoned at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba but have been cleared for release, the Globe and Mail newspaper reported on Wednesday.

There are a total of 17 Uighurs in the prison. Although no longer considered "enemy combatants," they are still at Guantanamo because the United States has been unable to find a country willing to take them.

The Globe said Uighur human rights activist Mehmet Tohti met with senior government officials -- including Immigration Minister Jason Kenney -- on Jan 23 and urged them to accept the three men.

"There was a positive consensus ... They were not against it," the paper quoted him as saying. New U.S. President Barack Obama -- who will visit Canada on February 19 -- wants Guantanamo closed within a year.

Tohti could not immediately be reached for comment. A spokesman for Kenney said he was unable to discuss specific cases.

In 2006, the United States allowed five Chinese Muslims released from Guantanamo to go to Albania. The U.S. government has said it cannot return the Uighurs to China because they would face persecution there.

Many Muslim Uighurs, who are from Xinjiang in far western China, seek greater autonomy for the region and some want independence. Beijing has waged a relentless campaign against what it calls their violent separatist activities.

If Canada did accept the Uighurs, it would focus even more attention on the case of Canadian Omar Khadr -- the only Westerner still imprisoned in Guantanamo.

Opposition legislators and human rights activists say Ottawa should press Washington for the return of Khadr, who was captured at age 15 and is accused of murdering a U.S. soldier with a grenade during a firefight in Afghanistan in 2002.

Canada's Conservative government has so far refused to act, saying Khadr faces serious charges. Khadr's trial was halted last month after Obama took power.

(Reporting by David Ljunggren; editing by Peter Galloway)

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