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WASHINGTON (AP) -- A group of Chinese Muslims set to be freed into the U.S. this week from Guantanamo Bay found their freedom stymied yet again after a simple government plea: What's a couple more weeks or so in jail after nearly seven years?
That in essence was the Bush administration's argument to a federal appeals court in a 19-page emergency request that maintained there would be only "minimal harms" if the detainees were to stay at Guantanamo a while longer.
Late Wednesday, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit agreed, halting the 17 men's release for at least another week to give the government more time to make arguments in the case.
The appeals court set a deadline of next Thursday for additional filings, when it will be left up to the judges to decide how quickly to act -- and in whose favor.
"Our hope is that the Court of Appeals will not stand in the way of justice," said Jason Pinney, a lawyer representing the detainees. "After seven years of unlawful imprisonment, it's time for these men to be released. The government should not be permitted to continue down this path on interminable delay."
The three-judge appeals panel that halted the detainees' release included Judges Karen Henderson and A. Raymond Randolph, both appointees of the first President Bush, and Judge Judith W. Rogers, who was appointed by President Clinton.
The appeals court's move comes after U.S. District Judge Ricardo M. Urbina on Tuesday made a dramatic decision ordering the government to free the detainees by Friday. Urbina said it would be wrong for the Bush administration to continue holding the detainees, known as Uighurs (pronounced WEE'gurz), since they are no longer considered enemy combatants.
"We are pleased that the Court of Appeals granted our request for a temporary stay, and we look forward to presenting our case," Justice Department spokesman Brian Roehrkasse said after the appeals court issued its one-page order.
The Bush administration had asked the appeals court to block Urbina's order no later than Wednesday. The detainees were scheduled to arrive in Washington early Friday and appear in Urbina's courtroom for release to local Uighur families who have agreed to help them settle into the United States.
The government said the detainees at the U.S. naval base in Cuba had admitted receiving weapons training in Afghanistan and were a national security risk.
The Bush administration also said it was continuing "heightened" efforts to find another country to accept the Uighurs, since the detainees might be tortured if they are turned over to China.
"There are extensive efforts. We oppose the idea of their release here," White House spokesman Tony Fratto said Wednesday.
In Beijing on Thursday, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Qin Gang said: "Some people may worry whether these people could be tortured in China. I believe this is biased. China is a country under the rule of law, and forbids torture by any Chinese authorities, be they judiciary or public security."
Albania accepted five Uighur detainees in 2006 but has since balked at taking others, partly for fear of diplomatic repercussions from China.
Uighurs are from Xinjiang -- an isolated region that borders Afghanistan, Pakistan and six Central Asian nations -- and say they have been repressed by the Chinese government.
The Uighur detainees were captured in Pakistan and Afghanistan in 2001.
China has long said that insurgents are leading an Islamic separatist movement in Xinjiang. The Beijing government has repeatedly urged the U.S. to turn the Uighurs over to Chinese authorities.
"We have raised our position to the U.S. and we hope they will take this position seriously and repatriate these 17 people to China shortly," Qin said Thursday.
The Uighurs' case is among dozens currently being reviewed by federal judges after the Supreme Court ruled for a third time in June that foreign detainees at Guantanamo have the right to sue in U.S. civilian courts to challenge their imprisonment.
Emi MacLean, an attorney with the Center for Constitutional Rights, which is representing many of the detainees, called Wednesday's decision a major blow. After telling the Uighurs they would be freed, lawyers will now have to tell them "their detention is once again indefinite."
"It's hard to believe there is any sense of justice in a situation like that," she said.
Oct 09 15:44
By ANDREW O. SELSKY
Associated Press Writer
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SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico (AP) -- A Chinese Muslim locked up at Guantanamo Bay may soon be granted an improbable wish: To move to the United States.
A federal judge this week ordered the man and 16 other members of an ethnic group from western China freed from Guantanamo and brought to his courtroom, but an appeals court late Wednesday gave the Bush administration at least a week to come up with arguments against the move.
Statements over the years by the Uighurs held at Guantanamo since 2002, reviewed by The Associated Press, indicate they consider America an ally but are angry they have been imprisoned for so long.
Guantanamo has been steeped in controversy since suspected al-Qaida and Taliban members were first sent to the base in Cuba in chains in January 2002. Human rights groups and lawyers said people who had nothing to do with either group were swept up in the aftermath of 9/11, some sold to U.S. forces in Pakistan and Afghanistan for bounties. The Bush administration insisted only the "worst of the worst" were taken to Guantanamo.
But even the U.S. government now says the Uighurs, from an ethnic group that allegedly suffers repression from the Chinese government, are not enemy combatants.
The Bush administration is unwilling to send them home because they face abuses in China, so it is trying to find other countries to take them. It says they're too dangerous to "let loose" on U.S. streets because they allegedly received weapons training.
In their statements to military panels at Guantanamo, the Uighurs said they left China to escape repression or look for work because Uighurs were denied good jobs at home. They said that if they felt hostility toward any country, it was China and not the United States.
They have been held at Guantanamo alongside suspected al-Qaida and Taliban members.
"I want you to explain why I have been grouped in with those terrorist people," said Arkin Mahmud -- the detainee who dreams of moving to the U.S. -- told a Guantanamo panel almost three years ago. The Army colonel presiding over the Administrative Review Board said his panel didn't need to explain why Mahmud was in Guantanamo.
Mahmud denied receiving weapons training and laughed when a soldier suggested he had plans to attack the United States. "No, of course not," he responded.
He did, however, acknowledge that he had lashed out at Guantanamo prison guards.
"When a regular person is just doing his business and ... then ends up in prison, that is frustrating and sometimes you get mad," he said.
"I would like for the United States to take me and I will stay there the rest of my life in peace," Mahmud said, when asked what country he would like to go to.
Rebiya Kadeer, president of the Uighur American Association, said Uighur families in the Washington area are willing to house the men. Brant Copeland, a pastor from Tallahassee, Florida, said in a conference call with Kadeer and journalists that his community is ready to welcome them -- even though he hasn't found anyone there who speaks their Turkic language.
Mahmud told his Guantanamo tribunal that he was a shoe repairman and had gone to Afghanistan in search of his brother, who is also among Guantanamo's 17 Uighurs. Uighurs are from China's impoverished Xinjiang region bordering Afghanistan, Pakistan and six other nations.
The brother, in a separate tribunal, acknowledged that he had learned how to use a Kalashnikov in Afghanistan. He told the panel that he sought independence for his region, which Uighurs sometimes call "East Turkistan."
"We need a country like the U.S., like a powerful country, to help us," said Bahtiyar Mahnut, whose surname is spelled slightly differently from his brother's in military documents.
In 2002 -- after the Uighurs were detained -- the United States declared the East Turkistan Islamic Party a terrorist organization amid intense lobbying from China. Several of the Guantanamo Uighurs are accused of associating with the group.
Mahnut said China wants to make the Uighurs look bad and urged his military panel to "really look carefully" into the issue. He also dismissed al-Qaida members as lunatics.
"They just destroy everything and we're not crazy like those people," he said.
Abdul Razak, another Uighur, said he left China because he couldn't pay debts and went to Afghanistan "to start a carpet or possibly an animal skins business."
He denied receiving military training.
"If I wanted the training I would get it to fight against the Chinese government," he said, according to the transcripts reviewed by AP. "America has never hurt my family or my nationality. Why would I train to go against the U.S. government?"
He expressed frustration that his parents could not be brought to testify that he had gone to Afghanistan to look for work, adding that "my parents are probably suffering now because of my debts."
The Air Force colonel presiding over the tribunal said such testimony would have been irrelevant. Razak disputed that.
"My parents know why they sent me out," he said. "Did they send me to fight or to do business? They know why."
Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Qin Gang told a news conference this week that the Uighurs were terrorists who should be returned to face justice in China and insisted they would not be tortured.
In their appearances before the Guantanamo panels, the detainees begged the American soldiers not to send them back to China, saying they would be tortured and executed there.
Mahmud said he would want only his corpse returned.
"If I should die in here, I would like for you to send my dead body back to my family," he said.
Oct 08 16:12
By GILLIAN FLACCUS
Associated Press Writer
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BUENA PARK, California (AP) -- In a suburban landscape dotted with evangelical megachurches and auto malls, followers of an Indian religion thousands of years old spent days decorating marble idols and lighting incense to herald the opening of one of their faith's largest temples.
The new $20 million Jain temple complex, celebrating a religion that promotes nonviolence and vegetarianism, and shares with Hinduism the concepts of nirvana and reincarnation, is expected to attract pilgrims and scholars worldwide.
The soaring marble-and-limestone facade takes up almost an entire block in this working class city and dominates a mundane scene of laundromats, auto repair shops and taco stands with its domed roof and gleaming, coffee-colored pillars.
It replaces a much smaller temple that opened in 1988 about a decade after 25 Jain families first came together to worship in this northern Orange County city. That original building was the first independent Jain temple in the United States.
Twenty years later, intricate images of instrument-playing goddesses, idols, elephants and flowering lotuses line the marble walls and ceiling of the new temple. The designs were inspired by two famous Jain temples in India, both about 1,000 years old; tons of Indian marble were shipped in crates over six months to recreate the imagery, paid for almost entirely by member donations.
"You don't see temples this size very often, even in India," said Dilip V. Shah, president of Federation of Jain Associations in North America. "It's so majestic. ... This is something to admire, and it inspires others."
Jains began migrating to the U.S. from India in the 1960s. Southern California was a popular new home because of the many universities and highly skilled jobs in the region, but Jains also settled in large numbers in San Francisco, Chicago and New Jersey.
The tiny religious minority has struggled to maintain its beliefs amid the distractions of Western life, especially for second- and third-generation Jains. The new complex was inspired, in part, by that challenge, said Ashok Savla, president of Jain Center of Southern California.
"In this day and age, there's so much violence in our lives and here we are with a philosophy of nonviolence. How do we pass these values on to the next generation?" Savla said. "We need a place where we can have our children start learning the values that we all believe in."
Less than 1 percent of Indians practice Jainism. Still, its followers number in the millions worldwide and a tight-knit community of about 100,000 faithful has flourished in the U.S.
The temple opened last weekend after 11 days of dancing, worship and theater organized by the 1,500-member community, topped off by a parade and sacred ceremony to install 47 marble idols in their new home. Twenty-four of the statues, which Jains worship, represent people who attained enlightenment through repeated reincarnation.
Together with its attached cultural center, classrooms and a planned 10,000-tome library, the complex will be the largest Jain spiritual center outside India.
The completed project will include 15 classrooms so that hundreds of children can take religion classes and learn Hindi and Gujarti to read religious texts, said Savla. Some of the classrooms will share space with the library, the largest collection of Jain writings outside India.
On the first day of the ceremonies, chanting worshippers flowed into their old, makeshift temple as men in toga-style white robes and white face masks painstakingly pasted rice-sized bits of bright blue and white yarn on idol statues.
The men, who wore the masks to keep the air around the idols pure, created a pattern of zigzagging bands on the smooth marble, then topped their work off with tiny jewels of red and purple. The men redecorated the idols daily for 10 days, sometimes adding elaborate headdresses.
"It's like how we dress up when we have a party," said Adhir Shah. "We try to decorate this way so we get more feelings inside of our own life, our own body, and we can worship more and more."
Later, young girls tossed flowers at the audience and rubbed red paint and rice grains on the foreheads of onlookers to symbolize renewal before a troupe of teenagers performed classical Indian dances. The ceremony ended with a solemn lamp-lighting to symbolize enlightenment.
Pina Mehta, who grew up worshipping at the crowded former temple, said she brings her 11/2-year-old daughter to all the religious functions to try keep family traditions alive.
"I'm going to try to raise her the same way my parents raised me," said Mehta, 30, wearing a deep blue sari and jangling silver bracelets. "I'm really proud of all the beliefs that I have."
For Paras Bhimani, however, the appeal of the new temple is much more immediate. Bhimani, 23, was so worried he wouldn't find a Jain temple when he moved from India last year that he brought along pictures of the most important idols so he could worship at home.
Now, he won't need them.
"This is better, because in this place everyone is doing the same thing," said Bhimani, as he took a break from walking prayer circles around an altar holding idol statues. "It feels like back home."
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On the Net:
Jain Center of Southern California: http://www.jaincenter.net
Oct 06 20:12
DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) -- The Diocese of Des Moines is forming a new parish named the St. Peter Vietnamese Catholic Community.
The move, slated for November, answers a request from the Vietnamese community for their own central worship site.
The church is on Des Moines' east side, and with the new parish comes Ly Chu, a priest who speaks English and Vietnamese.
Bishop Richard Pates made the announcement over the weekend. He says there are about 400 Vietnamese Catholic families in the area.
The new parish is scheduled to hold its first services on Nov. 30.
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Information from: The Des Moines Register,
http://www.desmoinesregister.com
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