Appeals court says Uighurs won't get 30-day notice

WASHINGTON — A federal appeals court on Tuesday overturned a judge's decision to give Chinese Muslim detainees at Guantanamo Bay a 30-day notice of where the U.S. government will send them when they are released.

A federal judge had ordered the government to give a month's notice before releasing nine Uighurs (pronounced WEE'-gurz) so they could challenge the decision of where to send them.

The Uighurs at Guantanamo are no longer regarded as enemy combatants by the United States. But U.S. authorities have rejected calls by China to return the detainees, citing fears of persecution.

A three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit said, however, that federal officials don't have to give the advance warning. "The government has declared its policy not to transfer a detainee to a country that likely will torture him, and the district court may not second-guess the government's assessment of that likelihood," said Judge Douglas H. Ginsburg.

Judge Thomas B. Griffith dissented, saying he believes "the law requires that the detainees have notice of their transfers and some opportunity to challenge the government's assurances."

Uighurs are from Xinjiang, an isolated region that borders Afghanistan, Pakistan and six Central Asian nations. They are Turkic-speaking Muslims who say they have long been repressed by the Chinese government. China has said that insurgents are leading an Islamic separatist movement in Xinjiang.

The Uighur detainees were captured in Pakistan and Afghanistan in 2001.